Let it go, it's Happytown
by Gabriel LaVedier
Summary: Tired, dangerous, the trash can of Zootopia. Home for native predators and all manner of immigrants. A place of gangs and private investigators. One unremarkable death becomes, for a PI and his assistant, something far more in the misery of Happytown. (Sort of an odd AU of the French show Sherlock Yack in Zootopia, connected to the Translation of Dawn Bellwether universe.)
1. Goodbye, Charlie

I do not own Zootopia, that belongs to Disney. This a fan work made solely for the sake of amusement.

" **Let It Go, It's Happytown"**

 **Prologue: Goodbye, Charlie**

 **By: Gabriel LaVedier**

Happytown had never been much of a place, even when brand new. It was just a relatively large chunk of the main part of the city destined, from the very beginning, to run down into a rough and hated location. Into that pocket, ignored by _proper_ folk and almost all the police, were thrown the lowliest and unluckiest predators, as well as the vast majority of the immigrants that weren't lucky enough to have higher-class support.

The result of all of it was a strange inversion of the population numbers. Immigrant prey were outnumbered by native and immigrant predators, and lived in Happytown without too much difficulty, barring problems with hard pred-power types, whose numbers fluctuated wildly over time. It was a place where prey could, on a dim level, really understand the problems predators faced from both discrimination by numerically superior neighbors, and from the feeling of being isolated outsiders regarded as too foreign to be accepted.

Cut off from conventional services and systems, they had to slowly and painfully use trial and error to establish their own versions, almost creating an internal government and their own versions of services. With police reluctant to enter, or ordered to leave them to ruin and gangs, the citizens of Happytown turned to the only thing they had. Private Investigators.

More common across the city in the days before Mayor Wulfberg's corruption-crushing drive, they never really went away. Social wrongs like adultery, missing items and mammals, even looking into actual crimes where some physical force was necessary and the police would never find out, they did it all. They were, in the larger city, mostly quaint anachronisms, or shady, seedy figures associated with old movies and cheating spouses. In Happytown, they served a more real purpose, being the closest thing to justice most predators could ever hope for. Those predators couldn't hope for wider justice of a social nature, with the deck stacked so high against them, but they could hope for a mediation with a shady loan broker or information on who stole something, allowing for quiet revenge.

Happytown believed it was something else, something besides a part of Zootopia. Even surrounded by the city, the city ignored, mocked or hated them. They had no need to respect a city that gave them no respect. With their own justice force in the form of paid private investigators and social cohesion in the form of gangs selling themselves as power and respect, they also had their own kind of executive, their own mayor. He was never elected formally, but a gregarious heart and a positive attitude and reputation made everyone love and respect him on some level.

"Cheery" Charlie Spots was a fairly average leopard, for a Happytown native. He was of the Amur variety of leopard, with a scruffy, thick coat of strong and solid rosettes, the spots and circles dark black while his coat was more golden-cream, a lovely bit of brightness in the dour collection of blocks. His attitude was more often than not described as exuberant, or even effervescent. He was often ready with a laugh, a charming story and a comforting shoulder, something needed very often in the area.

His mayorship was just assumed and accepted by the folks around him. They started calling him that and he went along with it. He gave street corner speeches, promoted helpful projects and encouraged engagement with the place, to try and make it someplace really worth living in. He also occasionally called on the actual executive authority of Zootopia, taking the concerns of the citizens of Happytown to the Mayor, the City Council and Chief of the ZPD. He had been running into a brick wall for a long time, but the shakeup post-Bellwether had offered a certain amount of hope and positivity.

One fairly ordinary Asterdas afternoon found Charlie in a normal surrounding. He was sitting on a stool in _Nippers'_ , one of the bars that were scattered through Happytown. It was one of the nicer ones, generally clean, not that smoky and with a less surly clientele of generally nicely-attired folks, with only a few skulking, sketchy figures. His presence likely had an influence on the last part.

He was a scrawny fellow, smiling his way through his relative privation, lank and agile with his long limbs. He maintained a kind of tattered gravitas with some faded black slacks, a size too big spats, a wrinkled dress shirt and a black jacket. His drink order was less staid gentlemammal, more eccentric youth. A bright, almost neon pink and green drink with multiple little plastic swords impaled through multiple fruits.

Multiple trashily attired ladies were around him, laughing along with him and pressing in around him. He dropped a few more bucks on the bar, which were swiftly swept up by the bartender, a somewhat hefty tiger. He mixed up and poured out another few martinis for the laughing ladies.

"Aww, come on, Charlie! Tell us another one! I love hearing about that stuck-up lion telling you he's gonna do something about all this garbage, just to get you out. Seeing him in prison made it way funnier!" A cinnamon-colored bobcat said with a laugh.

"Naw, naw, can't do it, Red. I love having an audience, and you gals are a treat, but I've gotta get on with the day. A day off from work means a day of giving out some good cheer and maybe heading off to City Hall to do another number on that Mousawitz. He's dodging me again, and it's killin' me. But I always have a spot with that Seedsworth guy. He always listens, he wants to do stuff I tell him about, and he always lays into Mousawitz. I think one or two more good pushes and we've got something going on."

Red shook her head and surreptitiously pressed a dried leaf to one fang, chewing it casually with small motions. "You say it all the time, Charlie, but it's never gonna happen. You know Mousawitz is the old-style Happytown-hating prey type."

Charlie chuffed softly and shook his head. "Red... Red I keep telling you..."

"It's a little..." Red twitched and cast her eyes around. "It's just a little. Medical, y'know? Helps out. Maybe you could do with some."

"I danced with the nasty cat grass. I got out of it and Red... I wish I could get you out of it. It's..." Charlie started.

"Charlie, I love ya, but just let me have this. You've got a head full of big ideas and I've gotta share an apartment," Red flatly stated.

"I've got an apartment too... alright Red. Just remember, I'm here for ya," Charlie sighed, dropping a tip on the bar and leaping off the stool, to many waves and friendly calls.

Charlie made his way down the cracked sidewalk, lightly brushing the tufts of grass with his toe-claws and shaking his head. Even concrete was too much for them. She ran his fingers along the brick of one of the buildings, claws lightly scraping along the graffiti that faded on the surface. Gangs came and gangs went, but always left a scar, however ephemeral. Another thing they couldn't clear away. **Wouldn't**.

At the corner of two of the major streets Charlie stopped off at a slightly steaming vendor cart, tended by a portly grizzly bear. "Hey there, Boo! What's good today? Fatty salmon? Ahi? Mahi-mahi?"

The bear grunted softly and opened the top of his card, revealing a complicated collection of compartments for frying, storage and even a freezer. "Hake, bass and _Your guess is as good as mine_."

"Drop me some hake and potatoes, Boo," Charlie cheerily said.

"Don't know how you keep smilin', Charlie. It ain't natural in a place like this," Boo replied, dropping two fillets and a few thick fries into a pool of oil just able to cover them.

"Oh I keep the smile to keep off the frown. The frown won't do any good. Especially when you're selling Happytown to the regular folks. We're exotic and strange, so far as they know, so we gotta show 'em the best face. And the best face is one-a these," Charlie answered, pointing to his big, bright smile.

"Yeah, show your teeth, that should make that scummy pellet-dropper Mousawitz listen to you," Boo grumbled, lightly, sullenly moving the fish and potatoes in the shallow frying basket.

"Hey! I may not enjoy the decisions he makes, but he's still a mammal," Charlie said.

"So am I, he still treats me like something I dropped in the woods," Boo retorted.

"That's no reason to be so abusive. That helps nothing. Besides, that smile never seems to put off Councilor Seedsworth. Tatu or Fanak, either, but I see Seedsworth more."

"Ahh, tail-raiser type, is he?" Boo asked with a smirk.

Charlie scoffed and slowly shook his head. "Never would have thought I'd hear that. No, no, just a normal Outsider. He's comfortable with preds, and really wants to help."

Boo huffed. "I'll believe it when I see it. I'm not getting any veggie-chewer goodies over here. Still getting pellets dropped on my head by that rat in the Mayor's chair."

"He's doing what he can. Bellwether left a mess they're still cleaning up. Just a good thing it's getting cleaned up. I mean sure, I'd rather have Lionheart back..."

"At this point I'd take one of those puffed-up tigers from Gazelle's hoofer show in the Mayor's office."

"What? Any pred'll do, Boo?" Charlie asked with narrow eyes.

"Don't look at me like that," Boo snorted. "I'm no pred-pride idiot like those gangster punks clawing up walls and pissing on street corners to prove some stupid point. But a pred can at least understand other preds, no matter how fancy and stuck-up they are. I'm sure that puffed-up lion at least got called a chomper somewhere in his fancy schooling. It's something."

"Well... I mean... it might help something... maybe someone with clout like Councilor Fanak. She's got the chops too."

"Foxes... well, better a fox than nothing at all," Boo grunted, lifting the fryer basket, giving it a shake, and dumping out the contents into a folded wad of paper, which resembled the rough paper towels used in public facilities. He passed the while thing along and started, "That'll be-"

"Keep the change, Boo," Charlie interrupted, passing over a twenty buck bill.

"Lemon, vinegar, gold flakes?" Boo asked with a tiny, hidden smile.

"Save it for other customers, I've just been dyin' for a bit of fish," Charlie said, immediately biting into a steaming fillet, crunching with his mouth open while huffing out. "Hot! Hot!"

"For being mayor of Happytown you're none too bright, Charlie," Boo chuckled, flipping over a sign saying _Food cart of choice for Cheery Charlie_.

"I'll endorse that statement, just keep it tasty and don't cut the fillets with bug meal, unless you say so. Again," Charlie said with a grin.

"One time, Charlie, one time!" Boo said with a good-natured growl.

"One time's enough if you break trust with your customers."

"Yeah, yeah, alright. See you later, Charlie," Boo said, topping off his oil and checking his stock.

Charlie continued down the street, munching on his fish and fries and taking in more of the sights. He loved his home, however tired and neglected it might have been. The air was heavy with the scent of exhaust and the dodgy sewer system, which he hardly noticed at all. Nothing could steal away his appetite, not something so familiar. It was just what his home was.

The environment was filled with ghosts, old advertising posters practically baked and melted onto the buildings from ages past, along with the newer ones faded and clinging tenaciously to the sides of buildings, attached one over another, a forest of nails and staples dug into every wooden space and more than a few softer bits of aged concrete. The electrical and telephone poles stood, cracked and aged and similarly studded with decades worth of rusty staples and nails. The whole thing wasn't strange to him. It was his world. Even finding spent taser heads and broken tranq darts in the gutter wasn't odd. Just the environment.

At the back of his head, he knew that was a sad thing, a tragic thing. The idea that such objects were the normal part of his life was a sad thing. His home was a dangerous patch of asphalt, concrete, glass and steel, over which he pasted dulled familiarity and a positive outlook. He smiled because if he didn't he'd cry over what his home was. He was happy with Happytown, because it was his. He had read a poem that expressed a similar idea once. Even if he loved it, he could still see its flaws, see it bleeding before his eyes, and want to wrap it in bandages and help it to truly recover.

"Hey, hey, got something for us?" Passing by a stoop brought Charlie to the attention of a pack of wolves, all of them in baggy black jeans and either no shirts or white sleeveless undershirts. Several of them were drinking out of paper-bag-wrapped bottles that cut the air with and extra heady waft of alcohol choking the environment. "Hey, hairballer! Hairballer! Got anything to donate?"

"Contributions to your future, of course!" Charlie cheerfully called out, finishing off his meal and stuffing the paper into his pocket, as no trash can or dumpster seemed evident.

"Yeah, our future good time. Now give us the bucks," the lead wolf growled, baring his teeth and showing off a missing fang and a cracked tooth. "It'll keep your future happening."

"Gentlemammals, you know me! I'm trying to make Happytown a better place! Somewhere that doesn't need to come to this. Cecil Seedsworth promised jobs and economic recovery."

"The spoor does that mean? Who's that? Sounds like an eclipsed prey guy. What do they care about Happytown? This ain't their town, it belongs to the Loup Garou!" The wolves all howled at the name of their gang, ending by showing off their fangs and letting drool slip down their lips. "Now. Pay."

"What was that spoor?" A voice boomed from around the dear corner. A trio of tigers in jean shorts and denim jackets came around the corner, their backs decorated with clawmarks done up in a tiger pattern. "You butt-sniffing curs talking junk about who rules around here? You cut that scat and leave that cat alone. He may be all rings and blotches but he's a cat."

"You shut it, hairballer," the lead wolf barked. "This is Loup Garou turf!"

"Not much longer!" The lead tiger snarled, unsheathing his claws.

Charlie knew his audience and dashed off quickly when the focus pulled off of him, the two gangs posturing and snarling at each other. That was another ugly part that needed to be plastered over. The gangs worked with impunity. Their gang signs, graffiti and posturing was pushed out in the open. They were bold, arrogant and contented. The police were a joke to them.

Charlie tossed his crumpled fish and fries paper into the dumpster in the alley beside his building and gave a sigh as he looked up at it. Another saggy, tired block of brick, fire escapes bolted to the side like cold iron bars hugging each higher floor. Other districts in the city boasted consciously over-designed embellishments and flourishes. They were designed to be flashy and impressive, unique and special. Even the vanilla central district had its beautiful gothic and deco touches tucked away in the _charming_ old town area. They had a world of finials, decorative buttresses, artistic molding and a host of other touches that astounded the eye. Even the backwards mammals of Meadowlands could boast charming decorative touches and base personalization that made their homes and businesses retro, though they would never admit it wasn't a conscious choice for the sake of tourists.

Happytown was a trash can, where the high-minded prey and desperately crawling predators threw away predators who didn't get lucky and the prey that had the bad luck to immigrate and found the city didn't want outsiders polluting its beautiful, carefully manicured official diversity. For all it was a trash can, that just meant it accepted everyone. If immigrants were thrown away, Happytown would accept them.

He walked into the lobby of his building, nose still not numb to the strange scent of the place. It was like a mix of mingled musk, stale cooking oil, a waft of garbage and the smallest hint of perfume and cologne attempting to hide one thing or another. He skipped the questionable elevator and took the stairs, jogging up two flights and hanging a quick left to his apartment.

Entering the place left him with his usual sight. A cramped living area leading to a miniscule kitchen with functional appliances that looked like they had come through a time portal from decades before. His linoleum was cracked and oddly discolored, the old floral patterns on each one distorted in different and unique ways. Most of the space was carpeted with a beaten down brown shag, that showed though threadbare in some spots. Through a small doorway to the right was the bedroom and the bathroom, uncomfortably close to one another.

The furniture that he could claim was nothing but a saggy but comfortable brown armchair, covered in cracked vinyl, patched with duct tape. He had no television, but there was a comfortably aged boombox, beside a bookshelf with a few of his CDs, and a lot of books. He also had an old desk piled with papers, mostly his proposals to the mayor and City Council, and some notes on the problems he noted in Happytown, as well as verifiable information on gang members, ways the police could get proof against them.

Charlie sank down into the wooden chair that sat in front of the desk and flipped through a few of the papers. "Seedsworth said he'd love to discuss the bit about the gambling. Dunno who his new friend is, but they're on top of things..."

A small sound from his bedroom made his ears perk, the soft shuffle sounding like someone was there. "I hear you in there. I promise, I spend well but I don't have any hobbies and I don't drink much. I swear I don't have much for you. No good-time drugs, no prescriptions, nothing you might like. Just head out the door and I promise that's the end of it."

The mammal in the bedroom said nothing, and did not emerge, merely shuffled around again.

"Look, I can give you a few bucks. It's not much but it's what I have. I'm just trying to make Happytown better for everyone. Just try to be reasonable," Charlie softly said, approaching the bedroom with soft, quiet steps. He peeked his head around the corner, offering one of his trademark smiles.

Hands covered in black latex gloves reached out with a plastic bag, quickly wrapping it around Charlie's surprised head. The bag was secured around his neck with a quickly pulled zip tie, snug against his throat but not quite choking him with the tie alone. His mouth was held closed, and his body was bulled around and pressed down onto the bed. "Even if you could scream, no one would even bother. There was never any hope. Just give up. It's Happytown..."


	2. Back to Happytown

I do not own Zootopia, that belongs to Disney. This a fan work made solely for the sake of amusement.

" **Let It Go, It's Happytown"**

 **Chapter One: Back To Happytown**

 **By: Gabriel LaVedier**

Police presence was spotty, by and large, in Happytown. They went there, and had been trained in greater numbers for that purpose, but it was still a special duty assignment, and often restricted. The city seldom cared to push their presence too hard unless there was a special circumstance. They already looked bad enough, having abandoned the place for so long. Having an anemic response to a real problem was too much. They just got especially selective about what constituted a real problem.

Some officers were put through the Happytown beat as a form of punishment, or as part of a grim but necessary normal cycle. With Nick in the mix it could have been either one. Bogo always had a low-level hate-on for Nick and his unrepentant huckster ways. An inveterate con-mammal, he ran harmless, small-scale stuff on his fellow officers. Though never Clawhauser, out of respect for his harmlessness, and the fact that he was Bogo's brother-in-law, and thus protected.

Judy, being connected to Nick in so many ways, was often roped into the consequences of Nick's actions. It was a continual element of frustration, but one that she didn't begrudge. Nick was just Nick. She grew up in a challenging family, so dealing with one troublesome fox was a breeze.

"I realize walking the Happytown beat is boring, but family questions?" Judy asked, looking aside at her husband with a quirk of her brow. "You've heard me go on and on about family multiple times. You just met all of them again."

"Right, met them at a wedding, at two weddings. It made your family's status even more unique. You had Weaselton there, the Duke of Bootleg at a fancy country wedding surrounded by down-home bunnies and a bunch of very important mammals. I'm amazed he wasn't slipping your Hopps family silverware into his pockets," Nick said with a sly and casual look.

"Oh he knows better than that. He's **my** cousin now, and that means a lot. I'll throw him through a literal old-fashioned wringer washing machine if he gets too far out of line," Judy said with a soft growl and a stamp of her paws. "Besides, you know why he won't. You saw why. That nice Muffin is really good for him."

"What a name. Is that for real? That's can't be real."

Judy shrugged. "Rich mammals. They're very unique. I mean, names are just names. You met Ermintrude Dreyson at the weddings. Deputy Buck's girlfriend Hayma. Sheriff Beatrix's boyfriend Rimpssie. Her parents just decided she needed a name that stood out in her fancy life."

"Rich and fancy... he really pulled off a good one. I never knew he had the skill to pull off a sugar mamma number. That takes a high-level gigolo skill that takes years to master, like Finnick's got," Nick noted.

"Ugh, Nick..." Judy shook her head with a slight smile on her lips. "I don't need to know how Finnick gets his jollies or dates. Besides, that's not what this is. Muffin told me very directly she picked him out, she made the choice to be with him. She bought him out from under Mr. Big. Now he's just kind of an accidental socialite. I think half the fun of that idea is imagining him all dressed up and looking completely lost surrounded by rich, fancy mammals."

"I've heard that living well is the best revenge. Sometimes, someone living well is the best punishment, and the most entertaining for the ones watching," Nick said with a deep chuckle.

"Oh be nice. He's family now. That means he's related to you, too," Judy teased.

"By marriage, and by marriage, and then by distance," Nick sniffed.

"Oh Jake's way closer than you think. Not the same litter but near the same generation. But you probably feel closer to Kenny's wife."

"Now, now, don't just assume all foxes get along. You saw how all that went. She was nice enough but just full of snark and sass. Is that how they're raising vixens these days?"

Judy rolled her eyes and gave a sidelong glance to Nick. "Right, right, foxes never act sassy and snarky. No normal fox would ever act like that..."

"Are you calling me normal?" Nick asked, blowing a kiss to Judy and popping his brows to her. "I thought I was something special."

"Oh, you're especially annoying, that's true," Judy said with a small laugh. "But really... what were you trying to say about my family?"

"You're not a normal family. You're actually accepting of a lot of strange relationships," Nick noted.

Judy halted their walk to allow for a hard hug around Nick's midsection. "You mean like you and me? A fox and a rabbit... that doesn't happen all that often. Don't spread it around, but weasels and rabbits are always getting together, just not usually in marriage. It's nice to see a wedding come out of it. Princess makes a great addition to the family, even if Jake took her name."

"With how much you talked about your family influence I figured they just absorbed everyone into their enormous, fluffy mass, like a sponge," Nick mused, slowly rubbing his chin.

Judy softly elbowed Nick in the gut and grinned up at him. "A Hopps is a Hopps, no matter what. Jake's still family, and Princess is too. She kept her name to keep the name on the general store. We love keeping things the same in the Tri-Burrows. We love that sense of history."

Nick looked around at the sagging buildings, chipped brick and cracked concrete papered in decaying advertisements. Telephone lines bristled with an armored coating of rusting metal and the sidewalks buckled, sometimes cast atilt by the resurgence of nature poking weedy tufts from beneath. "Yeah, Carrots... you and I have a very different idea about what history means..."

Judy really took a look around and winced at what met her eye. Pulped paper and overgrown lots, trash in the gutters and a wan pall across the buildings. "You know... we've built new things too. We got rid of the old, backward folks and made it better out there. We don't just look at the past..."

"You don't have to apologize for where you come from, Carrots. It's no prize, but this was my home. I do go on and on about it, but it was still where I came up," Nick said with a soft sigh, taking another slow look around. "I don't have a lot of good memories here, but I had some. And that's what matters."

Judy casually glanced around, checking on the street signs as they passed. "What's with the streets? This isn't the usual patrol route. I mean, if I remember the layout we'll swing through all the important patrol areas eventually, but this isn't the path Bogo assigned."

Nick was silent and thoughtful for a long while as they walked down the street. "Something happened here. The city just barely thought it was worth noticing. Mousawitz noticed, but didn't care enough to lean on Bogo. Bogo assigned a few officers to look but he's tied up by Mousawitz. I owe a guy something and... well, you'll see."

They continued to walk along in silence until they got to a section of Happytown that looked to consist of small, narrow buildings packed close to each other, with signs announcing businesses while the upper levels looked like housing spaces. Amid the collection of chiropractic clinics, massage parlors and _For Rent_ signs one shingle stood out with a bold color choice. A dark crimson sign formed of stacked right triangles with a white crescent moon and sun inside them. Also written in there was an incomprehensible script, with a helpful translation below. _"Sherlock" Gyag, Private Investigator_.

"A PI? That's pretty old-fashioned, Nick," Judy noted as she tried to make heads or tails of the sign's writing. "I realize we're not quite in a fully integrated time period yet, but... we're cops, and we're here. Happytown doesn't need to lean on PIs for justice anymore."

"It's not about what is or isn't happening where, or about some political thing. I told you, Carrots. I owe this guy something, and this is a debt I don't mind settling," Nick explained, holding the front door open for Judy, then walking in behind her.

The first thing to hit the pair was the smell. There was a sickly-sweet scent in the air, with a thick, heavy undertone of smoke. It was vaguely like the Mystic Springs Oasis, but the notes in the scent profile were more complex and rich, filling Nick and Judy's senses.

The light in the cramped office was low, provided by dull light bulbs in torch-shaped wall sconces. The front windows were heavily smoked, allowing in only dim, slanted shafts of light. The floor was covered by a well-worn but nice-looking elaborately designed large rug filled with exotic figures and motifs. The walls were covered in numerous exotic decorations and photographs of a well-put-together yak with various figures, including other yaks. The interior space was separated by a wall and a small, frosted glass door marked _Personal_. Beside the door was a small desk, behind which sat an ermine in her full winter coat, casually filing her nails.

"Oh my... I've never been around one before, is this what a smoker's place is like?" Judy asked.

"It's not tobacco. M. Gyag is a very big proponent of incense, and had many family heirloom incense burners and personal, family blends of preferred varieties for different moods," the ermine responded, with a very slight French accent.

"Well, you're new. It's summer and you're white all over. Did he just yank you out of Tundratown?" Nick asked.

The ermine rolled her eyes and huffed softly, continuing to file her claws. "I have a genetic condition. I was born white and never changed for any season. I'm not albino, I'm not leucistic, and I'm not fresh from the freezer. I was raised here, daughter of immigrants, same as M. Gyag. Now, do you have an appointment or some message for him?"

"Tell him Nick Wilde is here, to pay off," Nick said, unbuttoning his shirt and pulling out a manilla folder and a page from the newspaper.

The ermine pressed a rather old speaker box, a crackle filling the room. "M. Gyag, visitors for you. One of them says he is Nick Wilde, here to... pay you or something similar."

The door opened a very short time later, releasing a puff of sweetly-scented smoke and the long, tall figure of the detective of the place, apparently Sherlock. Like other yaks his mop of fur looked like a haystack, but he had controlled it to a decent degree, his small eyes actually visible in front. On his head was a gray hat, a sort of canoe-shaped thing settled between his horns. He also had a long, checkered coat in brown and red, which covered the rest of his body by and large. His horns were carefully rounded, and carefully polished, looking perfectly preserved without cracks or chips.

Sherlock initially looked somewhat confused, but on seeing Nick and Judy his eyes went wide and staring. "No, Nicholas! No! I don't care what it is, I don't care what kind of payoff you think I can get from this! No! I'm legit and level, all the way this time! I have my license, I keep it up, and I do my job well. I don't need this kind of thing. I've done some things, and you know just what I did for you, but not this! I refuse to impersonate the police!" He peered hard at Judy, leaning in closer to her. "You even got a bunny to be a fake of that heroine cop! Nicholas, I've tried to be good to you, but no. This is going too far. You get out of here and I promise I'll forget I ever saw you like this."

"And hi to you, too, Sherlock. Nice that you think so much of me that you think I'd be running a hustle about impersonating the police," Nick said with an eye-roll and a smile. "Don't worry about it, it's not what you think. Don't you watch the news? I mean, you recognized Carrots here."

"I listen to the radio, and read the paper, sometimes. I like to eat you know," Sherlock replied, snorting softly. "If it's happening outside of Happytown it has nothing to do with me. I was raised here, I live here, and I deliver justice here. It's what your folk call a bailiwick. I knew about her because I couldn't ignore it. But don't try telling me you're a cop now, too. I know you, Nicholas. I know you too well to believe that."

Nick flicked his badge and smiled at the light ping of metal. "Real as it gets. You can call Precinct One. I feel a little let down. You... didn't hear about anything?'

" **You** left Happytown. Your own life is on your head. As my venerable master Bajja used to say, when we leave the peak, no matter if in a valley or other height, that place we left is void of us, save for echoes," Sherlock sagely said. "What echoes do you bring me, Nicholas?"

Nick gave a warm, friendly smile. "Well, you met Judy here, you know I joined the ZPD. And... I married Judy. It was a short engagement, she was completely into me and begged- oof!"

Judy shook her head and elbowed Nick in the midsection. "Try to hold back the old Nick. Can you do that? He's right, we're married now, happened a little after I joined the ZPD."

"Congratulations, flic," the ermine said, never looking up from her claws. "If what M. Gyag has said just now is true this is a welcome and strange change."

"Speaking of change, she's new," Nick gasped, getting his breath back slowly. "Says she has a genetic condition and grew up here in Happytown. I don't remember anyone like her when I was grifting my way around here."

"There are thousands of flowers in this plain we call Happytown, I doubt you have seen them all. You didn't spend much time here anyhow. You broke away and ran your schemes on the outside folks as soon as you could. You just wanted to get out..."

"I needed money. But I... couldn't just take bucks from all the folks here. I know they don't have the bucks. I lived here too. Born and bred, Happytown native," Nick said, somewhat defensively.

"We are all equal here, M. Wilde. We are all nothings, except to ourselves and our fellow wretches," the ermine secretary said with a dark tone.

"Mlle. LaBelle, that's not helpful. It... has a certain truth, but not helpful," Sherlock said with a shake of his head. "I never knew what to think of you, Nicholas. Good and bad merged together, yin and yang. You could have been a wonderful student."

"That was your thing, not mine. I had to earn those bucks, prove what a sly fox I was. They wanted it, I gave it to them," Nick casually said.

"Yes... so you did..." Sherlock slowly said.

Judy broke the tension by going up to the ermine and offering a hand for a shake. "Judy Wilde-Hopps, ZPD."

"A pleasure Mme. Wilde-Hopps. Hermione LaBelle. Secretary, and detective understudy," Hermione said with a bright smile.

"Understudy?" Nick asked with a quirk of his brow.

"Her word. The term matters less than the activity. She can call it anything she wants so long as she learns from me and retains the information," Sherlock explained.

"Working with a mustelid seems like a great thing. My brother just married his co-worker. She's a least weasel that's the daughter of the owner of the place they work in," Judy happily said.

"Oh, petit belette. Who owns a place. Where in this terrible city will a weasel own a company?" Hermione asked.

"Well... they're back home, in Bunnyburrow," Judy explained, feeling oddly self-conscious.

"They have such power there? Predators have companies in... the country places?"

"It's complicated, and has a lot to do with... who's... a native... th-the Weaselton family has been there for generations. B-but we have immigrants too! The Sheriff is Suomi, a reindeer. That's a very important elected position," Judy stammered, increasingly uncomfortable.

"Don't trouble yourself. Mlle. LaBelle is fond of these kinds of political and social comments, short things that serve to make clients uncomfortable because it amuses her. She knows I'll allow it," Sherlock said with a slight frown.

"Fire me if it's wrong. But these folk must confront the dark corners they never explore, to learn more about themselves. Would such a thing be so terrible, M. Gyag?"

"Is your name really Sherlock?" Judy asked, having gotten her nerve back.

"That's kind of abrupt, Carrots. And kind of unnecessary. That's what I always called him, it's what he's always used," Nick said.

"There were quotation marks outside. And his last name leads me to believe he gave himself a name that fit in better. And naming himself after one of the most famous literary detectives can't hurt his reputation," Judy explained.

"Clever. The police might have some use in Happytown," Sherlock said. "My parents named me Shalva. But even so simple a name makes teachers and friends confused. Sherlock was near enough, and I did enjoy his stories. I may have influenced my destiny, one my venerable master Bajja already influenced. Was there ever another path?"

"Forgive M. Gyag. His philosophy is very constant. It's part of his nature," Hermione explained.

"Yeah, that's Sherlock," Nick said with a chuckle. "But, we've gone a little off topic. Sherlock, you did right by me, all my life, or as much as it overlapped. The only prey that treated me with any respect in this trash fire of a location."

"Only what you deserved. As Mlle. LaBelle said, we are all equal here. I knew there was more for you out there. You truly proved that, with your lovely wife and new job. I don't need your bucks or any kind of material. It was only what was right."

Nick pushed the folder and newspaper into Sherlock's hooves, still smiling. "I didn't deserve it, not with the stuff I pulled back then. I pay my debts, no matter how old. This is something that not only pays, but... this involves you. This is home. This is Happytown."

Sherlock took the folder and newspaper, looking down at them with some confusion. "I told you I know what happens in Happytown."

"Ask for Officer Wulfberg, tell him Nick and Judy sent you. He might be the only one there, if anyone is. Maybe there's no need to mention that, but it can't hurt," Nick said turning toward the door. "I promise it's something that you can do for Happytown."

"I... he never said anything, just that he had a debt to pay. This sounds... questionable. It's Nick, you know how that is," Judy said with a laugh. "But I do hope it's something that helps. I really do..." She scampered to Nick's side and joined him as he walked out the door.

Sherlock and Hermione were left, confused and silent. "Well, M. Gyag... it would be rude not to read what he has given..."

"Right, right..." Sherlock looked at the newspaper clipping and went wide-eyed. A look into the folder showed him mimeographed papers, bearing the ZPD seal. "Miss LaBelle, this might not be worth any pay, but this is something. This is all about the heart of Happytown."

"What is it, M. Gyag?"

Sherlock laid out the paper and the folder. It was a small article about the death of Cheery Charlie, the simple notice of suicide. The folder showed preliminary reports about anomalies. The designation of suicide had a margin note that read _Questionable_. A memo from Chief Bogo tersely stated his hooves were tied, no matter how it looked, Mousawitz didn't care about Charlie. "I knew he didn't end it. Hermione, get ready for a case. We're going to save Charlie's reputation."

 **Author's Notes**

 **The Sign outside Sherlock's Office-** A takeoff of the Nepalese flag. It seemed appropriate.

 **Sherlock and Hermione-** I'm an unashamed fan of the French cartoon series _Sherlock Yack_. It makes for a good base to craft a modern noir detective.

 **Hermione's speech-** She's a French immigrant but speaks English extremely well. She only uses French for some situations, and most especially when adding titles. For anyone not aware or surprised: M.- Monsieur; Mme.- Madame; Mlle.- Mademoiselle; C.- Chevalier, something she might not use much, but it would be used for someone of particularly high and powerful rank if she wants emphasis or perhaps to make light of them.

 **Flic-** French slang for a cop. It's as casual as it seems but not disrespectful necessarily. In context she's being sincere.


	3. Hello, Charlie

I do not own Zootopia, that belongs to Disney. This a fan work made solely for the sake of amusement.

" **Let It Go, It's Happytown"**

 **Chapter Two: Hello, Charlie**

 **By: Gabriel LaVedier**

"I was not too familiar with M. Spots, but I had met him more than a few times," Hermione said, as she walked with a quick pace, trying to keep up with Sherlock's longer strides. Her task was made more difficult by the rough nature of the sidewalk, and her rather high, strappy stiletto heels. They showed off her basic black fishnet stockings that led up into what was clearly a second-paw dress re-stitched for mustelids, that hung to mid-leg. It was a layered dress, the stretching artfully hidden by alternating thick tiers of coffee-colored fabric and cream-colored fabric, looking for all the world like she was wearing a tiramisu.

"Hard to live in Happytown without meeting Charlie. You know how much I keep to myself and still I met him, spoke with him. His smile... my venerable master Bajja would have been most impressed by how he shrugged off the darkness of his environment to see the best."

"He knew every dark corner, he knew well all the things I told him. And he never stopped smiling. He didn't see my arguments. He didn't see these ugly streets, he saw a future he wanted. I... don't know if he was a fool or a mammal I should have followed like a Convoker on Moondas."

"Even my venerable master warned me against bowing obedience to anyone, him included. But if someone was worthy, they should be listened to. Mr. Spots was certainly worthy of being listened to," Sherlock mused, his pace subtly and naturally slowing down as his hooves clopped along the cement.

Hermione's pace dropped slightly, slowly but enough that she noticed. She looked up at Sherlock, a slight frown creasing her features and beetling her brows. "I am not so helpless that I need you to cater to me. I will be a detective someday, your partner, in fact, M. Gyag. I must walk over this place, as no car will ever be provided. Walk as you will, and I will follow you. If I cannot, I should not be a detective."

"You can make a lot out of me taking it easy with my hoofing, Mlle. LaBelle. I admire how far you can step in one pace," Sherlock said with a sly smile.

"O-ho-ho, M. Gyag. Touche," Hermione replied, laughing softly. "But do not take me for weak or helpless. The stoat, like any stretched weasel, is a tough creature. I will persevere as your understudy, but only if you give me honest tests."

Sherlock slowly brought his pace back up to where it had been, nodding slowly. "Wise words, Mlle. LaBelle. I respect you too much to do anything less but put you to the test, honestly. So, follow along and let's hope we can make something out of this gift Nicholas gave to us."

"To you," Hermione corrected. "What did you do for him to earn you this gift?'

"Nothing all that special which I can recall. Meaning, I think, he feels he owes me for treating him with respect, for being fair to him, not judging his vulpinity against him or his predator nature. I only showed him the respect he truly deserved as a mammal, surviving in his place. I don't deserve special things for being respectful and proper. But if he wants to share bounty with me, well, that's quite good of him and I appreciate his plenty."

"And here I thought you didn't go to Sanctuary. Sounds like you've got some religion in you," Hermione tittered.

"I have... a unique perspective. I find the Peaceground way in harmony with the lessons of my homeland and the teachings of Master Bajja. Our ways are not common in this land, but we don't make much of it."

"I have heard this of yaks and musk oxen and gaurs and snow leopards. How bright they make this city, with these new, ancient, ideas."

"Some tigers, panda and a rare few tanuki too," Sherlock noted. "But most simply go fully to the Peaceground way, and I can respect them. Change is not shameful if it is a choice. This is a new world, a new place and there are many beautiful things here. Yes, even in Happytown."

"You sound like M. Spots. His boundless hope for Happytown..." Hermione looked down at her paws as they chattered along the sidewalk. "M. Gyag?"

"Hermione?"

"If he is gone, do we need to hold hope any longer?"

"Even more than before. Something like hope should never be kept inside one mammal, it should be something all of us have. And now we shoulder the burden he has left for us, to give Happytown the future he wanted," Sherlock asserted.

The two walked on in silence, Hermione keeping pace as best she could.

They made it to the apartment building, noting that there was actually police tape up and a few uniformed officers stood by the entrance. The pair of rhinos looked fairly humorless and stiff, almost seeming to glare down at Sherlock and Hermione as they approached. "Do we approach? No one hired us. Are we doing this for free?"

"For the good of Happytown. For all that others laughed about him now and again, everyone genuinely loved Charlie and found him a good figure to have. Those notes tell me that this was a tragedy, a crime against the true heart of Happytown. We owe it to our home."

"Authorized personnel only, sir," the left rhino brusquely stated, with a huge snort. "Please be on your way, and don't necessitate an official response."

"Perhaps this is not the wisest of ideas," Hermione said. "There are better times, monsieur, better places."

"Here, and now," Sherlock retorted, reaching into his coat to extract his city license. "Sherlock Gyag, duly licensed and bonded Private Investigator. I have information from Nicholas Wilde... Hopps. He wanted me to speak to an Officer Wulfberg."

The right rhino huffed. "Nick. Of course. He would be the one to make things difficult." He motioned into the apartment. "Don't touch anything. Officer Wulfberg is leading the response upstairs, third floor, immediately on the left. This better not be another one of his pranks..."

"It would seem the Nicholas you knew is still the same," Hermione noted as they passed between the huge rhinos.

"Well, he isn't perfect, but he is very good, in so many different senses," Sherlock replied, skipping the elevator in favor of the stairs.

Charlie's former apartment was wide open, small figures visible within, covered head to paw in white outfits, muzzle masks and goggles, examining the scene haphazardly. In front of the door stood what seemed to be a brownish-gray wolf, dressed in a standard ZPD uniform, looking into the apartment and seeming to oversee the small investigators. "Could you... could you try to be a little more professional? You've been trained better than that."

"You expect us to take a lot of our time here?" One of the figures grumbled. "We have better things to do."

"You're part of the ZPD! You take your job seriously!" Louis Wulfberg snapped. "For the love of harmony, a mammal died, have some kind of respect!"

"Relax, capricornball. We're doing what we can in this filth. It's Happytown. Everything's a clue to something," the figure offhandedly remarked, going back to their barely competent searching.

Louis seethed for a moment, then slowly let out a breath, eyes closed, trying to remain calm. On opening them he finally noticed Sherlock and Hermione. "I get that nobody cares but I expected better out of the guys at the door..."

Sherlock took out his license again, showing it off for Louis. "Sherlock Gyag, licensed and bonded city-approved Private Investigator. Nicholas Wilde-Hopps sent me. He gave me some... information. I think he believes you saw it too, something from the medical examiner. I don't think you have objections to him sharing it with me. He knows I care for this place, and cared about Charlie."

Louis looked at the license curiously as Sherlock spoke, realization dawning over his features. "Oh yes... Nick would do something like this. I'm guessing you knew him at some point and did some important service. I can't pay you for this. No one can. I appreciate him trying to help me out with this, and I'm sure you're a perfectly good detective, but... there's not much you can do Mister... Gyag, was it? You'd need an official clearance for this, and I can't offer you that. You'd need to see someone like Chief Bogo. He... is pretty locked down by Mayor Mousawitz, despite how much something like this means to him."

"Mm, as was to be expected of the police. Disinterested flics at the door, disgusting creatures on the scene. We are alone, M. Gyag. Your friend has let you down by accident. Our thanks, **C.** Wulfberg, for all you have done," Hermione said with a cold contempt.

"Hey! I'm doing my best here! You think I like this? Bogo assigned me to this because he knows I give a single whit! It was me or Nick and he knew better than to make him do it; he'd have done something to Mousawitz by this point and he'd rather not have a political scandal. Just... I don't know what Nick gave you, not entirely, but you're not wrong about what you're thinking..." Louis looked around and then up at Sherlock. "You heard him. You can guess that it matters. You have no idea how much I want to help you."

"I understand very much and Mlle. LaBelle should remember that not everyone outside of Happytown has supreme power. They have their own troubles and can only do as much as their status and position allows," Sherlock said. "You've been kind letting us make the effort."

"And you are too kind, M. Gyag. We deserve more than this, and there is no good to come from being kind when slapped away," Hermione huffed.

"He can't control that. He has a hard enough job, and I know this to be true. I've seen the police harassed and disadvantaged here. Your attitude won't help us, it only keeps things the same. We need a change, Mlle. LaBelle, not stagnation," Sherlock insisted.

"Am I getting between you two?" Louis asked with a smile. "Thought that needed a little lightening up."

"Your attitude is most positive, no wonder Nicholas sent me to speak to you," Sherlock said.

"Our friction is not your concern. We need help, not jokes. If there is a mystery here, let detectives solve it," Hermione insisted.

"I want to, but it can't happen. You really do need to go get something official. Bogo wants it to happen but it just wouldn't be worth it to talk to him. But there are others out there who could help. Now... surely you know who I mean," Louis said, with a knowing nod.

"Perhaps I would have done better to listen to my venerable master Bajja. To know everything within your sphere is masterful, to know important things outside makes a mammal seem more than wise. I know Happytown. I didn't even know Nicholas was married. I know the city is out there but don't know very much about it."

"Fortunately, you pay me enough to keep getting the paper, if only for the small things. What C. Wulfberg is trying not to say is Councilor Seedsworth. But, of course, he cannot tell us this, because the Chief would be forced to punish him once that small-minded rat in the Mayor's office found out," Hermione casually said.

"I'm not saying anything. But certain politicians have a certain amount of understanding when it comes to matters in Happytown and the plight of prey," Louis said, casting his gaze around.

"You're going to make an excellent detective, Mlle. LaBelle. We'll be back, Officer Wulfberg. With official consent to assist the investigation and properly look into this. Charlie didn't kill himself, and we'll vindicate the ones that know it."

"The ones that don't want to know it will hate that you want to force them to look at it differently. You'll have your official papers but good luck using them. But I hope something comes out of this. I really do," Louis sighed.

"But... knowing this doesn't tell us how to arrange a meeting with M. Seedsworth. We may fail before we even start," Hermione mused.

"Officer Wulfberg cannot help, of course, and by that fact, Nicholas and his wife are barred, though he might wish to pull one over on someone to try and help. The Chief himself is the reason, and yet not the reason. So, we will simply go to him," Sherlock simply stated.

"Oh? Is it so simple, Monsieur?"

"Life is complex, because it is a collection of extremely simple processes trying to happen at the same time. You may be right that it won't be easy, but what we ask is simple enough. What could it hurt to try it?"

o o o

"Audacity and arrogance exist on a border so fine that a spider silk thread would fall like a giant timber on the space between," Cecil Seedsworth stated, the formally-dressed lemming standing on top of a table sized for a larger mammal. His whole apartment was a construction made for a creature the size of a wolf, filled with runners, ledges, shelves and buttons of all kinds all around, sized for one Cecil's size. The furniture sized for him looked reasonably stylish, a mix of antiques and fashionable new pieces. The larger pieces looked very much like inexpensive IBEXA furniture, like might be found in a college dorm or first home. On the table near Cecil were three figures in a large enclosure made of mesh. They looked about lemming size, but also showed clear traces of wolf. "I have some perspective on fine gradations. Hero, villain and survivor have very, very narrow borders indeed."

"Councilor Seedsworth, this is incredibly generous of you, sir. I understand your time is valuable, but this is important, too. My home has apparently been attacked, and that cannot be allowed to stand," Sherlock said, sitting with Hermione on a low, plush couch that was slightly large for her and slightly small for him.

"Those copies you got from Wilde... a curious mammal, in my estimation. But apparently he works his manipulation for good, which blurs the lines that are so thin to start. Those copies only deepen my disdain for Mousawitz. I may have thought little to nothing of Lionheart, but he was not obstructionist to the same degree as that _wait-and-see_ do-nothing. Of course they would sweep a problem like this under the rug. We want to renovate Happytown, but not too fast or too loudly. It might upset the skittering fools. I wish I was in the big chair. Things would change, according to the plans I've received from Bogo and a silent partner. There are ways to fix the place and make everyone happy and secure."

"You have strong opinions, M. Seedsworth. But strong opinions in no direction I have seen of those prey that are not immigrants. I could not believe what I read in the paper. I assumed it was some lurid scandal," Hermione noted.

Cecil moved to the trio of children, who were close to him in size. He stroked over the head of one, which looked at him with bleary eyes and cooed happily, stubby tail wagging. "I demanded they put it in the paper, local news and society page. I married Gerhilde without hesitation, because love cannot be erased by the need for survival. A prison chapel isn't ideal, but Division was unacceptable once there was no more need. She and her brother... my brother... came from Happytown. Predators. Immigrants. Wonderful mammals. They served the city, with all their hearts. They did what they thought was best. Lionheart told them it was good, and he had the power. Pawns. But being predator immigrants they were given more punishment than was necessary."

"I can't claim to know what you went through, I'm only an immigrant. But I know what Happytown means to those from it. Your wife would know that defending Happytown makes sense. No matter what it's like, it's our home, and it needs respect before it can be built into something better," Sherlock gently said.

"I do understand, M. Seedsworth. You see I am a predator immigrant. Mostly ignored, but often looked down on. I have... limited faith in any change, because I have lived there all my life, and know those outside seldom care," Hermione sighed.

"You aren't wrong. Most don't, in various positions. Sometimes it's... a slight self-interest. I know that Chief Bogo has no connection to the place, but cares because of a predator. Same as I do. But while his wife is a native of Zootopia, mine is from Happytown. That's why when you told my assistant that you had information about Charlie I knew I needed to hear you out."

"You can help us with this. I know you know nothing about our detective skills, but Nicholas trusted me with this information. He thought I could do something with this. He's a slick sort but his confidence should be enough. A fox such as him... he doesn't give his confidence lightly," Sherlock stated.

Cecil stroked over his children again, looking thoughtful. "I can give you an official dispensation to consult with the police. Mousawitz will raise high holy squeaking when he finds out, if he finds out. But I can defend my decision. Outside consultants are common, someone from the area will understand the local matters, and Chief Bogo will rubber stamp it while repeating my points. No direct collusion, no internal investigation. Commissioner Oliphant won't even bat an eye. Now... you're a private detective, so you must be paid, but you'd be working as a consultant, so your fee would be different. Mousawitz would certainly hold that up, and insist you get nothing until the end of the case. You'd pay everything out of pocket. But I can offer you a certain private fee to keep you going. I want this madness solved, and I want it done with all due focus."

"You care very much indeed. You respect our home, and perhaps something more," Sherlock said.

"I liked Mr. Spots, detective. I respected him as a mammal and as some kind of unofficial glad-pawing executive. Oh, he was no politician, he would never have been elected to the Council once we wised up and made Happytown a full district. But as a symbol, he meant everything," Cecil sighed. "I want you to find enough information to increase the police presence, to push up the conversation about it and find out the truth. Find out for me... for everyone why such a mammal was taken away before his good ideas and gentle guidance could truly affect real, lasting change."

Sherlock and Hermione rose, Sherlock reaching out to offer a hoofed hand to Cecil, who gingerly shook a hoof tip. "Councilor, in the sentiment of my venerable master Bajja, my honor is my only truth. I will be true to you, and make certain the truth of this is revealed, lest the honor of Charlie be forever tainted."

"See you do that, Mr. Gyag. When my wife comes out of her incarceration I want her to find a home that has been changed, for the better. Give her that."

 **Author's Notes**

 **Capricornball-** In case it isn't very clear, this is a pretty cutting and incredibly bigoted and disgusting slur, thrown out as a casual insult from someone feeling very secure in their job. As established in other stories, Louis is a "passing" Division Child, half wolf and half goat, which everyone now knows ever since his parents finally got married in the wake of Gazelle and Judy marrying their predator boyfriends. It attacks his goat side as well as insulting his sense of morality as outdated or worthless. It's related to another insult that came about in our world, "Capra-Corn" which denigrated the works of Frank Capra and movies like them because they had positivity and happy endings.


	4. What we want to see

I do not own Zootopia, that belongs to Disney. This a fan work made solely for the sake of amusement.

" **Let It Go, It's Happytown"**

 **Chapter Three: What We Want To See**

 **By: Gabriel LaVedier**

The next day, Sherlock and Hermione approached the apartment front again, walking with greater confidence, Sherlock upright, Hermione with a smug smile on her face as she quick-walked her way along beside Sherlock's long stride. The same rhinos were there, and looked curiously at the approaching detectives. "I don't know what happened but Nick's name only gets you in once," the right one said.

"Then let me give you a more powerful name..." Sherlock confidently said, pulling a folded piece of paper from his pocket and showing it off. "Councilor Cecil Seedsworth. His personal signature, the ink might still be wet. I've been approved as a consultant on this case. I have every right to be in here."

"Also, we have a liaison in the form of Officer Wulfberg. So, please do let us through so we may... liaise," Hermione insisted, raising her muzzle higher.

Both rhinos passed the paper between each other several times, reading it over carefully and checking the signature several times. Finally, the left one clicked his shoulder radio. "Officer Monocer to Precinct One. I need you to check on a consultation approval signed by Concilor Seedsworth for a... Sherlock... Gee-yag..."

"Gyag, clip the end very sharply," Sherlock corrected.

" _I have that right in front of me,"_ Officer Clawhauser answered, almost immediately. _"The Chief informed me that the Councilor had called him up and insisted he make a note of it. Funny, he wasn't as angry as he usually is when someone demands something. But, never mind! It's all clear. That's been officially processed. He and an assistant named... Hermione LaBelle are approved for looking into the Cheery Charlie case."_

"C'est moi, Monsieur," Hermione said, showing her ID and provisional credentials. "Understudy to M. Gyag."

"Officers, good to know you take your jobs seriously, it speaks well of you," Sherlock said with a nod and slight angling of his hat. He and Hermione stepped between the stunned rhinos and made their way up the stairs.

The room was still open, but the small investigators were gone. Officer Wulfberg was standing outside, arms crossed across his chest. "I could be patrolling Happytown right now. This case should be closed. I don't feel like antagonizing the Mayor, he's enough of a pain as it is."

"And a very good morning to you, C. Wulfberg," Hermione said with a grin. "Shall we bring you a coffee? You couldn't possibly get any more bitter."

"Mlle. LaBelle... he's doing his job. And he would rather be doing something much harder and more painful. After all, patrol officers get no respect or support. That he wishes to do a much harder task, take the hate, speak of his strong constitution. He would rather be spit on and disrespected rather than watch us look through the scene and perform light duties as our conduit to the police," Sherlock said, with an even, smooth tone that betrayed no other emotion.

Louis winced and grit his teeth as the emotionless snark pierced through him. He couldn't react with anger, he couldn't make them leave, he had no proper response that didn't either concede or play along. "I do what I'm assigned to do. I'm not required to like it... I don't have to be able to stand what it all means... but I do it! If you want to look into this, do it, but don't think anything's going to change. Nothing does."

Hermione clicked her tongue and looked at the officer with an impassive expression. "Pardon, C. Wulfberg. I am not looking for un petit ami, your tone and attitude are wasted. And they are... perhaps more than I like. I only unveil the dark, I do not rest in it."

The wolf rubbed his temples slowly as she stepped away from the door. "We took the body, of course, but photos have been left for context and some indication of how the scene looked. That... that wasn't planned but the crime scene guys didn't bother to pick up anything. Management would complain but I don't think they care. Or they don't feel like dealing with the police for reasons I can only guess."

"Given what I've heard by digging around it's a bit of both. Councilor Seedsworth's slumlord legislation is a real threat to them if any problem ever arises that gets them noticed. But it serves us. We get extra time to examine," Sherlock said, stepping carefully into the room while pulling out a large, circular magnifying glass.

"Is he serious?" Louis asked to Hermione as she gingerly stepped her way into the room.

"Mais oui," Hermione answered, careful to step only in places she had seen Sherlock step, or near enough given their different stride spans. "Though I believe it may only be a focus for his special powers. He has been trained in a place far away in ways which we may not fathom."

"Don't listen to her. I only learned patience, focus and concentration on the details, how to take scattered facts and properly connect them with sense and reason," Sherlock said as he slowly dragged the glass across the carpet. "What were the species of the crime scene technicians?"

"We were sent small ones, as you saw. Under the suits they were cavies. Why?"

"And full coverage suits?"

"They might not care about Happytown but no ZPD crime scene tech would ever get so lax that they'd be out of the required uniform. They'd be fired immediately after Chief Bogo got through yelling them into next year," Louis insisted. "What's this about?"

"Herbivores like me are rare in Happytown, and while I don't doubt Charlie had friends of every diet he seemed like the kind of mammal to maintain a private space. A mammal that big-hearted still needed a small space all of his own. This carpet is cheap and relatively weak. His toe claws left small cuts that he probably tried to prevent. A cheap place like this would cheat him out of his money if they saw too many obvious claw scrapes. Most of the ones I see are old, they're flattened with the rest of the carpet, the insides faded like the uncut fibers of the carpet.

"But I can tell, there was someone in here with point-tipped hooves, a split-hoof type. They were trying to be careful, a professional, but they were unfamiliar with this quality of carpet, meaning they probably didn't encounter this kind of carpet in daily life. The shape of the imprints are directed toward the bedroom and then out again, the fibers broken rather than sliced with a claw, showing different shades inside. No fading and no trampling down," Sherlock said, slowly following the small traces along the carpet.

Louis looked stunned at the revelation, his teeth gritting slightly. "Those slacking little rodents! They didn't even bother to notice that! How could those idiots do that?"

"Because they literally can't think the way Happytown needs them to think," Sherlock blandly stated. "Hermione, can you explain what I mean?"

"Bien sûr, M. Gyag," Hermione said, nodding in his direction. "Happytown has separation, the poor and the weak cling to what division gives them any sense of superiority. They do not easily mix with others. The wolves hate the Amur tigers, the tigers hate the wolves and the bears, the bears hate smaller predators and the wolves and tigers, the weasels keep their position by slinking their own way, and everyone hates the foxes. Immigrants cluster together, even those that have their own kind in Happytown. And those immigrants who are prey do not socialize with predators except in... very rare cases.

"Your crime scene cavies would think like those who know only at least casual interaction. They think nothing remarkable finding prey prints in the home of a predator, and think nothing of them only ever going in and out. Some of them may have thought of scandalous things, to preserve prejudices. Of course they would not notice, working so lazily and so sloppily. Their lack of concern and their inability to understand Happytown made them inept. Intellectual laziness only forgives so much. They may not have wanted to see. But I will not speculate," Hermione concluded, nodding her head firmly.

"I mean... a good cop understands every District has its own ways about it. Doing business in Sahara Square is very different from Tundratown, and from the Rainforest District. And forget Little Rodentia if you're bigger than a cavy. Still... we were never trained in Happytown policing. Bogo told us to do our best and... seems kind of angry about all things Happytown."

"Naturally, he is a flic. He has nothing but hate to give," Hermione sniffed.

"You need more seasoning, Mlle. LaBelle, you were told outright he wants to care, but his own position requires he force himself to be ruthless and hard. His wife is a predator. He cares at least that far, and likely more than he can say, to remain a strong leader. His kind is the silent sage. I don't know him, but I know his kind. They are hardly the ideal, but of the many choices to have as a leader, there are worse. Stoic, as your kind would say."

"I could have recalled that in time," Hermione insisted, looking proud and disdainful.

"Of course. But it's better that a detective remove emotion, especially in the initial stages. You can care all you want, after you've carefully deciphered all the clues, with no distorting lens of emotion. Like those crime scene mammals. They showed disdain, and that locked their minds into common patterns," Sherlock said, having made his way into the bedroom.

"Well, I'm only his understudy," Hermione offhandedly commented to Louis. "Learning and perfecting are my occupations at this time."

Sherlock's investigation took him right before the bed, his magnifying glass moving closer and pulling away as he teased meaning from the tiny indications still present after other mammals had been around. "We're dealing with a taller mammal, potentially a male of the species, but taller than Charlie to some degree, at least enough to lift him and be stronger than him."

"Now this I want to hear explained. How did you figure out what the techs couldn't? Happen to have the guy's name while you're at it?" Louis asked, with his arms crossed over his chest.

"I'll pass on your pessimism, Officer. This must seem strange to you. As I said, the hoof prints show the passage and position of the stranger. Charlie was somehow moved to enter this room where he was killed through the appearance of suicide, via the bag and zip tie. His toeclaws, as expected, tore little furrows, a sign of distress. Strange if he was committing suicide. If he was reacting to suffocation it would have involved flat-footed stabbing, not a small spot of random rakes into the carpet, which would have happened if taken by surprise. Again, your techs saw what they were expected to see.

"Charlie would never have just allowed himself to die. Kind as he was all mammals have a natural instinct to survive. Only someone larger than him and stronger could have restrained him for the time needed for his own struggles to exhaust his air. And, as noted in the report copy, there were nicks on the inside of the bag. Not incidental fang scrapes, which prey minds might expect, in a contrived thought about the nature of predator fangs, but from Charlie trying to open his mouth and scream while having his muzzle closed. Tiny nicks in the carpet, of the random nature I mentioned, would indicate he was off his paws, kicking out and only just able to rake the carpet. The tall, strong perpetrator then set him on the bed when it was finished, and carefully walked out, trying to avoid any marking of the carpet, though he did it incidentally.

"I must conclude from the factual pieces of evidence at my disposal that Charlie was lured to the bedroom or entered as part of his daily routine where a tall, powerful split-hoofed individual, possibly a male given sexual dimorphism, was waiting. He had a plastic bag and looped zip tie prepared, which he slipped over Charlie's head and cinched tight, slightly too tight for it to truly look like an intentional act. He held Charlie off the ground, muzzle shut and paws off the ground. The deed done he arrayed Charlie in a posture to seem like a suicide then made his way out once more. I may have missed a detail but given what is known and can be seen, that's the most logical conclusion that can be drawn," Sherlock said, rising and carefully walking out of the apartment.

Louis just looked at Sherlock, and the nose-up Hermione, completely at a loss. He had been through the academy, drilled and trained harshly, the survivor of a winnowing sieve that threw out many mammals barely different from him. He'd taken test after test, done more exercises than he ever had before, and been granted a badge to go with his label of Officer. He was daily surrounded by law enforcers just like him or even more seasoned. And yet, some broken-down slum-located Private Investigator with some papers stamped by the city after passing a test with a minimum score had just provided the evidence that sustained the suspicions of the professional medical examiner, outperforming the crime scene techs. Knowing the location made all the difference. "I can't quite take all that to Bogo, not when, you know, there's pressure and ego on the line."

"I didn't think so. Your cavies would resent the implication of incompetence and Bogo would have to deal with conflict, something I sense he prefers to avoid," Sherlock blandly stated. "But now we know. More importantly, you know and can make more official inquiries. Tell Chief Bogo why you need to make record searches and examine old case files. He should understand and keep you out of the sightline of Mousawitz and other less discreet mammals interested in keeping Happytown as it is."

"I can't guarantee anything. I mean that in any sense you want to take it. I... I might not even look. The Chief might not let me. Both of those are unlikely but real. I could just not find anything. There are a lot of split-hoof types, even with the need for him to be big, that's a lot. And if they were professional enough to never be caught before, it's just a jester's scavenge."

"But you will help, will you not?" Hermione asked. "We next must take to these streets and ask questions of those never inclined to answer, who keep their heads down and trap themselves in their own misery."

"Blaming the victim..." Louis began

"Is right if the victim perpetrates," Hermione shot back. "They wish to do nothing, then nothing is done. They make it bad because they choose to let it be so. The gangs and others make it harder but not cooperating with each other to at least clean or secure themselves is part of the problem."

"Part but not all, Mlle. LaBelle. Blame is not so easily partitioned. The disdain with which these citizens are held must be the biggest portion," Sherlock insisted.

"Meager though it is, M. Gyag, they should eat their own portion. We are all wretches here, and equal in our wretchedness, but there are no excuses. We do what me must, yet no one else does more than merely surviving. Disgraceful."

"How do we contact you? We plan to have more information once the interviews are done," Sherlock said.

Louis reached into a compartment on his belt and pulled out a card. "Because of the special nature of this assignment, officers working in Happytown get these. We're of slightly more note than normal patrol officers, because we're dealing with a lot of unique situations and individuals that will get to know us. If they start to trust us, that's what we want. The number gets you the main board, and that little code is a verification thing, they'll get hold of me and I can take the call from there. I'm just a low-level beat-walker. I've got a locker and I share a desk where I can write out reports. The phone is communal."

"We'll be in touch, Officer Wulfberg. Don't worry, this will all go somewhere," Sherlock asserted, pocketing the card and nodding to Louis. "Let's get walking, Hermione. Cases don't solve themselves."

o o o

"We may have promised too much to C. Wulfberg," Hermione huffed, trotting along beside Sherlock with dextrous skill on her heels. "I told you, the victims want to continue the victimization. They will say nothing. They know he is dead, many may know he was killed. They fear what? Being killed as well? How many do they think can be killed with impunity?"

"At least one more than Charlie, and they could be the one," Sherlock said, evenly. "They must survive. They have no power, no status. They have genuine fear. Fear of the gangs, fear of the normal Zootopians, even fear of police more apt to punish than help. Look at Councilor Seedsworth's wife. Obeying the orders of Lionheart, doing what was assumed to be good. But she is from Happytown, and had to face a maximum penalty."

"We accept these things as reality. But survival is for insects and fish and birds. We are mammals, we must live, or our existence means nothing," Hermione insisted.

"As my venerable master Bajja said, we live to live, survival gives us that chance. Meaning is our duty, none will give it to unless we allow ourselves to become a puppet to others. They must survive, Mlle. LaBelle, or else life is impossible. It all stacks atop each essential."

Hermione huffed and tugged on Sherlock's sleeve. "Look, monsieur. That cart." She was pointing to a vaguely steaming cart staffed by a big, surly bear. A sign hung at a tilt, announcing it was frequented by Cheery Charlie. "His name. Perhaps that bear knows more of M. Spots. A mammal that eats at a cart will likely talk to the one who makes his food."

"Excellent deduction. You're learning well," Sherlock commented, turning toward the cart.

"It was basic, the sign did the work," Hermione said, brushing off her front modestly.

"In Master Bajja's words, no bird soars with thought and care, but all marvel at its wisdom and wonder at how great it must be. By learning so much about this profession your new mind is now ordinary to you. You don't realize that you are doing anything special. But special it is," Sherlock said, stepping up to the bear. "Sir, I would like to ask about..."

"Unless it's about food, keep walking, leaf-chewer," Boo grunted, barely sparing a glance at Sherlock.

"Hmmm, not an uncommon reaction. I was not born in this city but I live here. However, I respect your need to work, sir. What sort of meal would the late Mr. Spots have? I'll have that."

"Monsieur... it is clear what sort of food this bear sells. Do you forget your own self? You are a vegetarian, by choice, I note. Others of your ilk have other diets. But no matter, you do not need to buy your information in this manner," Hermione said.

"I know what I'm doing," Sherlock politely said. "As I said, sir, Mr. Spot's order, please."

"Sure, sure..." Boo said, opening up his cart and dropping the frozen fillets and potatoes into the hot oil. "I stand by most of what I said. But I gotta respect anyone stuck in this open sewer with me. You kinda remind me of Charlie. You didn't get mad, you didn't call me what I probably deserve, you just went with it. That was something I liked about him. He kinda just kept it together. Had his head on right. Not like these guys ripping walls and pissing on stuff. He had brains."

"That was the impression I always had of him," Sherlock said with a nod. "His ways were very familiar, somewhat like those I've tried to practice. I had great respect for him."

"Respect, yeah..." Boo said, looking wistfully at the frying food. "That was the word. Everybody respected him. I mean, everyone with sense. Mammals that actually gave an eclipsed care respected what he wanted to do. We all made jokes, we all had a laugh, but we did want what he wanted. He was the only one thinking about us. He wanted the big mammals in City Hall to think about us too."

"As I understand it, Cecil Seedsworth does. He hired me to look at this case. He knew that Mr. Spots would never do this to himself. Others on the Council surely also wish to move on Happytown matters, beyond what has already begun," Sherlock noted.

"I heard him say something like that. He was always talking to that Seedsworth guy. Thought he had credibility just 'cause his wife was an immigrant from here. Maybe it does. I dunno. He mentioned some others, Tatu and Fanak. As if a fox could change anything. I don't care where she's from. We just need someone to change all this," Boo grumbled, gingerly pushing the fish and chips around.

"Did you know of any troubles? Anyone truly upset at him, someone from outside upset by his work?" Sherlock asked.

"He always smiled around here. He seemed to be feeling good. He always did but I think he thought he had figured something out with Seedsworth and Fanak. Either that or he was just happy to have two Councilors listening to him. Maybe that meant something. But he always said it meant something. He hoped so hard it probably gave him a hernia," Boo quipped, shaking out the fish potatoes and settling them into absorbent paper. He passed them off to Sherlock and nodded. "I knew Charlie wouldn't do that. We need the whole city to know he wouldn't do that. Maybe then they'll give a rotting pile about us."

Sherlock checked the prices on the side of the cat and opened his wallet, carefully counting out the exact amount and passing it along to Boo. "I promise you, I'll get to the bottom of this. This matters to everyone. Happytown is our home, Charlie was our heart. We've been stabbed in it by someone and they must be dragged into the light to pay for it."

"Don't know ya, but I like your style, fella. If I hear anything, you can count on me to say something," Boo said, topping off his oil and shutting his cart.

"Perhaps not informative as such, M. Gyag, but a new information source may pay in the future," Hermione noted as the two walked off in the direction of the office. "We know it was a murder, and that is enough to begin. It must be an outsider, a split-hoof prey animal that had reason to harm M. Spots, by personal decision or paid design. He had been making waves, and those are not good for the self-important. More questions, more investigation, and we will see who he has been aggrieving. Now to your purchase... if you hoped to buy the looseness of his tongue you only planted a seed, with no promise of a return. Why did you do it, M. Gyag?"

Sherlock casually handed the food aside to Hermione. "As you noted, Mlle. LaBelle, I am a vegetarian. But you aren't. Fish is something much prized by those who who consume meat, as I understand it. He needed to sell, you enjoy this meal. And it was only right to give you something nice. You're learning well."

Hermione considered the fried fish and potatoes, taking a tentative bite from one of the strips of fish and savoring her mouthful, chewing it with contemplative slowness. "Even cheap fish from a cart is fish. M-merci, M. Gyag. This extravagance was unwarranted but... thank you."

"All for the greater good. If you are fed you can focus well," Sherlock said, holding the door to the office open for Hermione. "You can see more than your own ideas if you don't have to think of your own needs. Let's look beyond, and see what really brought this tragedy to our door."


	5. Prey Go Home

I do not own Zootopia, that belongs to Disney. This a fan work made solely for the sake of amusement.

" **Let It Go, It's Happytown"**

 **Chapter Four: Prey Go Home**

 **By: Gabriel LaVedier**

The crime scene of Charlie's apartment could only be maintained and guarded for so long. After political pressure from Mayor Mousawitz, against the objections of Councilor Seedsworth, Chief Bogo released the scene. The two rhino officers were pulled from the front to be put back into regular rotation, while Louis was sent back to the Happytown beat.

He had thought the investigative assignment would have pushed him out of the rotation for Happytown, but Bogo had kept him on the assignment. It was a slightly higher pay scale, but not the most desirable beat. Bogo had intimated that he was there to continue his liaison duty with Sherlock and Hermione. It was much easier to do that with him in the area. Understandable but just not very good.

Pounding the pavement almost seemed literal to him, given the rough nature of the pavement. He knew it was a very sad reality, and showed how disconnected he was from the plight of the Happytown folk. He had been pampered and gotten used to the cared-for streets and sidewalks of the better-cared-for areas of Zootopia. Even as a Division Child, with parents who got soft denigration from those around them and was only left mostly alone because he was passing, he still got to live at a level higher than those who languished in Happytown.

He knew, at least, he wasn't alone in his patrolling. According to the schedule Judy and Nick were also still there for the next few days. They tended to be walking together given Nick's experience in the area. Being a wolf, in form, Louis was more capable of single patrol duties, with his natural goat forcefulness adding to his power. A few others were around, but not many. There were very severe restrictions on how many officers could be _seconded_ to the assignment. Commissioner Oliphant was pressured by Mayor Mousawitz, and the Commissioner pushed his reluctant influence onto Bogo, who angrily and begrudgingly obeyed.

Folks in Happytown had oddly divided reactions to him and other officers, sharply split and with no in-between. They either ignored him, intentionally, pretending he didn't even exist, or they were shocked and defensive, assuming that he already thought they were guilty of something. Cold dismissal or hostility, nothing but that.

The old ways were sluggish, stagnant. They dragged with the collective inertia of decades, drawing even young folks along with the same hate for the outside that had been give by that outer space. Normal Zootopians might as well have been aliens to the Happytown citizens. Just thinking of it made him realize that it was the younger types that were more unpleasant, the most harsh and unwilling.

The older ones grumbled, the younger ones joined gangs. They had plenty of them, separated by species. The Loup Garou, the Striped Claw, the Polar Kings, and more still, packed into the area, 'protecting' collections of scared folk being extorted and threatened by their protectors. It was disgusting, but real.

"Hey cur! Cur! Gonna beat your own kind? Gonna shock your own flesh and blood!" One of the corners he passed had concrete steps into one of the dingy apartment buildings, forming a broad stoop. On that stoop was a tight cluster of wolves in many coat colors, their attire mostly a uniform collection of jeans and white undershirts. The one that had called out was a light wheat color, wearing a collection of gaudy faux gold chains and holding a bottle of beer.

"I'm not a cur, I'm a mutt, omega," Louis snarled back, keeping his eyes forward. He wasn't in the mood to deal with drunk wolves on him for not supporting them. He'd had overtures bluntly and clumsily trying to make a dirty cop out of him for pocket change or raw pack status. He was tired of it, and even more tired of being accused of being against half his blood. He was just as proud of being a wolf as he was of being a goat, and showed it by being a civil wolf.

"Who are you calling an omega, you swamp-blooded mutt?! Bet you're half tiger! Just passing as a real wolf!" The drinking wolf threw down his bottle, shattering it against the stoop. He rose quickly, making the other rise with him, all of them baring their yellowed fangs.

"Goat, you idiot cur," Louis spat, doing his best to tamp down the goat blood rising in his veins. His father was a good mammal, a decent mammal, but he'd had the same troubles that all goats did, a hot blood that could result in great passion. He loved powerfully and didn't suffer fools. Even diluted, Louis felt the thrumming surge now and again. "I'll headbutt your stupid muzzle into paste if you rile me. Just get on with your day drinking."

The tight pack slowly stalked down the stairs, some of them snarling, their hackles rising. "Cops don't belong here. We handle our own problems. Don't you know who we are?"

"Loup Garou, another squabbling pack of omegas pretending you don't live in Happytown and that other mammals should respect you. I respect PIs more than you, they actually at least do something," Louis said, subtly reaching his far paw to his belt, where he kept his rather overly large container of suppressant spray. It was large-mammal formula, probably more than necessary for wolves not hopped up on 'bane. But their pain was a secondary concern. A stab of empathy and moral consideration didn't stop the button pop or sliding the can out.

"No, those stripers pretend they didn't live in Happytown," the ringleader retorted. "Filthy tigers **would** forget where they came from. That stupid hoofer and her ideas. Predators get nothing unless they shut up and obey. You're all traitors, all of you listening to that braying hoofer telling us to get along. Not gonna happen..."

Before Louis could bring the spray to bear against the wolves a heavy voice tinged with an accent called out. "It's not predators. Happytown is for all the discarded and despised." Sherlock smartly trotted up to the group, holding something that looked like a pipe, but which he did not puff on. Despite that, it emitted a sweetly-scented cloud of smoke. It was metal, with a dark, glassy lacquer over it, ornately designed with strange, foreign motifs. "It's for all of us. As my assistant Hermione is fond of saying, we are all fellow wretches here."

"Shut it prey! What does a hoofer know about anything?" The lead wolf turned his muzzle to Sherlock, catching a muzzle full of the aromatic smoke, sending him into a small coughing fit. The other wolves took a step back, waving their paws in front of their snouts.

"You see another yak. We have yaks here. But I was never from here," Sherlock said, pushing a small button on his not-a-pipe, sending the smoke billowing out more thickly. "I was from far away, like so many that are thrown away here. I was allowed to grow old enough to know what the old world was like, before we moved here. Yaks. Prey. But there was no room for us in the city. We had no money to grease the wheels, we had no family to ease the way. No one would speak for us, and the silence locked us away in Happytown. All discarded. Just like you. Hated. Just like you. It was a change I was prepared for, and still never saw coming."

 _The snow was always blowing past a point on the great mountain, on all the mighty mountains but especially the sacred mother. Even hardy yaks and snow leopards stayed below the snow line if they could help it, or as far down as possible if they couldn't. Higher and higher there were fewer and fewer, until only fools and sages remained, clinging to the mountain, with inhabited caves, yurts and elaborate constructions to delineate the edge of civilized habitation._

 _The ancient monasteries were storehouses of wisdom, holding the old sages that had been contemplating the world for long ages. Though they seldom left the old places, and seldom had strangers in, they knew much about the ways of the world. They took students very infrequently, and for their own purposes. The honor was great, and the lessons hard._

 _Shalva had been chosen. His parents had hardly said a word when they informed the calf that he would ascend the holy mountain and no longer be merely theirs. He would become the disciple of the venerable master, Bajja, one of the most mysterious and aloof of the sages. He held his mountain-clinging monastery alone, with only his disciples to give it life. As a young yak he had no clue what would be expected of him, but he would learn, very clearly._

 _His instruction was distant, detached. What few other disciples were there, a dhole, a panda, and a swamp deer, all said that meeting Master Bajja was a rare thing, his instruction was distant, harsh and demanding. He was effective, but required results._

 _No matter how young he was, he was expected to obey the things that were asked. His mop of hair had been shorn, he wore padded saffron robes to only just stave off the cold, he ate meager rations, but enough to keep his body strong. He had started as any novice did, working long days keeping the floors polished, and studying texts left for him. For much of his time there he never even heard Master Bajja's voice._

 _Even without hearing the master's voice he learned much. Discipline, determination, and bearing up under the harsh environment. He grew up humble, and determined. It became his normal life. He thought that would be his lot, until the voice came from the depths of the monastery, telling him to come to the courtyard, piled with snow and filled with the aged wooden training figures. The wind blew, vaulting the weathered wall and cutting across Shalva's form. The biting chill, heavy with snow and shards of ice, made the calf shudder despite his best efforts._

 _From out of the misty frost a small object flew. Though Shalva could see it he couldn't dodge or deflect it. The small object struck the side of his head, sending him tottering. The object landed in the snow at his hooves, revealed to be a simple wooden-handled folding fan._

 _Shalva looked up from where the fan had come, seeing only a shadowy form. It loomed high, dark and indistinct, some billowy attire flapping in the wind. "So, young yak, I see we have many things to do before you can lay claim to any of the knowledge of this place..."_

Sherlock pushed the button on his pipe again, sending up another cloud of the highly aromatic smoke, wrapping all the wolves in the miasma of incense. "The unexpected happens. But we learn to live. We must learn from mistakes or the vagaries of fate."

The lead wolf, who had made several attempts to return to a point of anger, made a last sally. But the combination of Sherlock's continual talk about his status as an immigrant and the choking press of the exotic smoke cut his ire down to the lowest ebb. He snorted and motioned with his head to his pack. "Let's go, huff, let's just leave the mutt and the hoo- hack- hoofer."

Louis waited for the grumbling wolves to walk away before he nodded to Sherlock. "Thank you, Mr. Gyag. That situation was going to end but I like your deescalation over unnecessary repeated suppressant spray in the eyes and nose. It's less paperwork."

Sherlock nodded, waving the not-a-pipe around and slowly inhaling. "Master Bajja always warned me that power could be beaten by more power, but cutting down the need could defeat anything. It's a perspective I try my best to live by. It certainly got taught to me very clearly."

" _Young Disciple, do you think you have the force to defeat me?" Years later, Shalva was no longer the calf that had been so easily hit by the fan. His direct instruction from Master Bajja had made him more of a refined individual, more capable. His training in ancient ways from a true sage made him more capable than most who had studied for the same amount of time._

" _I've been developing my technique and strength, venerable master," Shalva responded, taking the standard stance he had been taught for the start of lessons. "I know defeating you would be difficult, but you asked."_

" _Your humility needs work, but that is not the point. Let us say I am able to be beaten as I am. Then say I take up a staff. Could you beat me with your basic technique?"_

" _You taught me well, Master Bajja," Shalva replied, shifting his posture to be low and angled. "I could take on a staff with the power you taught me to release."_

" _And with a dagger, young disciple?"_

" _You've taught me to approach and with your instruction I can learn the proper techniques," Shalva asserted._

" _And a sword, young yak?"_

" _I know there are ways we may do things. The great masters feared no sword or arrow," Shalva asserted strongly._

" _You know what I have told you of the outside, of the terrible weapons beyond these mountains. Can you move faster than the rush of these weapons? Do you think that even the great masters could really stop a sword in swing? They were cut down like any other. No power in your hooves or in your head could ever stop the power of real force. Power will always be undone by more power, and there will always be more power, young disciple. Think deeply on this. Power will fail, but deflection will never raise the need, only push aside the force until it is abated."_

 _Shalva thought deeply on the words, not noticing the shadowy form of his master until the billowing robes were practically fluttering by his form. Though he deflected what basic strikes he could manage, he eventually tried to attack and was stricken in the head with a paper fan with a wooden handle._

"I think maybe the ZPD should consider something like that. Stern force may work for Bogo but not all of us have the same inclination," Louis said, snapping his can of suppressant spray back into place. "Well... I mean, you heard why I do. It comes out at times I can't completely control, but also when I can."

Sherlock smiled. "As I've heard of other mixed children. Glad I could be of help to you, Officer Wulfberg. You've treated us fairly. You could have done the bare minimum but you've been attentive and helpful. You actually care."

Louis waved off the comment and looked at the thing in Sherock's hoof. "That's interesting. Just based on your name I figured, you know, it would be real but... I guess I should have guessed. It's a cliché but I see incense like that in places that have yaks and other mammals from the same place."

"I have a family collection of antique and special incense burners, but they're very basic. This not only fits the name, as you say, but this small button creates a bellows effect that makes it produce more smoke. I got this from a mail-order offer. I found an advertisement and sent money and designs to a shop run by a brushwood hound. Apparently the fact that I chose a pipe design was unique enough that she sent my money back with the pipe."

"I guess some folks really are good," Louis said, rubbing the back of his neck. "Have you discovered anything more on the case?"

"There's little enough to find. The police have all the information, and I only have cooperation from you, by virtue of what Councilor Seedsworth gave me. I'm doing my best to keep my promise to him, but I can only do so much."

"I did my best to give you access and let you see what records were available," Louis said. "The ME is the best bet for getting anything more than airy suspicion, though Chief Bogo said he was actively looking into charges of professional malfeasance when I, ah, gave my own report about indicators in the apartment. We did a lot of winking over whose signature was attached to that information, mostly because Mayor Mousawitz is raising high holy darkness over the mere fact that you exist."

"Existence is a troublesome thing much of the time. But in all my years of uncovering secrets I've never been cursed for simple existence. I usually need to do something of some substance to create such ire," Sherlock noted with a contemplative stroke of his chin.

"He really, really wants anything Happytown related quiet. Quick investigations, quick arrests, no need for a lot of fine detail and too much concern about getting things perfectly right. Just keep it out of the papers. He's mad at Councilor Seedsworth, but can't do a thing and he knows it. He's leaning hard on Commissioner Oliphant, and he's making a show of leaning on Chief Bogo. He can't keep up a charade forever. Someone has to buckle and go a little harder than they would like. We need some substance to justify more action."

"Councilor Seedsworth said that all I needed was something to increase police activity. He wanted the place given due and proper consideration. His wife is from here, and personal connections make good motivation. That's why I'm fighting so hard for it as well. I just wish I knew what more could be added besides the medical report and the investigation in the apartment."

"Mousawitz called it _highly speculative_ which seems to be his term for _politically embarrassing_. It's just thin enough that he can justify turning a blind eye. One wafer thin sliver of additional significant information and he can't hold that. That's all we need."

"I'll get something. I owe it to Charlie, and this place. The mayor may think little of it and be too afraid to help it, but he's from elsewhere, and remembers it. I'm from elsewhere. So many here are. We may be from far away but we are here now, and this is what matters to us. Whatever others may think, and however it may be, this is ours."

 _Days piled on days, lessons piled on lessons. It was nothing like most other young ones could have comprehended. Even the most success-obsessed families in more urban places wouldn't have piled on the lessons as hard and continuously as had been piled on all the disciples of Master Bajja._

 _It had been years of such. Shalva was still very much a child, but he had learned so much he was more developed than other. He had become fluent in the strange tongue so many foreigners who visited the mountain spoke. He had inured his body to the harshness of the freezing environment and modest rations. His physical prowess in martial arts was matched by a keen and deductive mind honed by complex and elaborate challenges, including numerous times deciphering koans that meant nothing. Finding the misdirection led to knowing when you focus on other things and avoid putting too much stock in seeming depth._

 _He had seen his parents infrequently, but was still their calf, and still required to go where they went, even after years of being under the tutelage of Master Bajja. He hardly thought about such things, focused on the present, and thinking, sometimes, of becoming a master himself. He had absorbed a good amount of Bajja's technique. He could have worked in a similar way._

 _Everything changed one morning when Shalva was engaged in copying scrolls of the ancient sages. He put his own style into his calligraphy, his use of ink thickness, line motion and how well he had mastered keeping still while the brush was in motion. The language of his folk could be written easily with enough practice, but his biggest focus was maintaining the straightness of the bar that crossed the top of every word, to demonstrate his mastery of the technique._

" _Young Yak," Bajja said, standing in the door frame to the scriptorium. "The time has come."_

" _The time for what, venerable master?" Shalva asked, continuing to form the letters._

" _That time which I always knew would come. Your family is leaving the ancestral lands, and going to a far place, a strange land you cannot fathom."_

 _Shalva's carefully controlled motion slipped, and his perfectly formed letter was ruined. "What? How can they?"_

" _They have the ability and the choice. They want better for themselves and you. That distant location will be much better for all of you."_

" _No... this is my home! This is where I wish to be! I can be a sage, a teacher, learn m-" The protestation ended abruptly, as his shaved head was slapped with the familiar wood frame of Bajja's paper fan._

" _Young disciple, the world is not set in stone. We who make statements about it are only telling what we can see with benefit of years. We can be wrong, too. You must learn to take life as it comes and only attempt to change when it is necessary. You will know it when it comes."_

 _Shalva was quiet for a long while, looking at the ruined scroll before him and feeling like he was just falling through nothing. "But..."_

" _Home is not a patch of dirt covering the bones of your ancestors, or soaked in the blood of the fathers that fought to take it. Home is where you are, and it only is home if you make it so. You live where you live. Home is what becomes of your intention. Remember that always, young yak. If you feel a place is your home, it is your home. This place is your home. But as well, if you feel it, this new place could be your home. You will make the choice."_

 _The lesson echoed in Shalva's mind. He thought often about the land he was leaving. The land he left. He encountered such new things, things he had only seen from visitors, but approached them with open curiosity, using the lessons of Master Bajja to allow him to reason his way though cars, computers and the overcrowded plane that took them across the land and sea into a place he could scarcely believe._

 _The sacred mother was grand, an austere glory, white and massive, spread far, each feature a speck in the immensity. Zootopia was a new experience entirely. It was a glittering jewel, packed tightly together. He was astounded by the size. Packed in a small space, an enormous small space. So many mammals there, of every size and shape that he could imagine._

 _New arrivals were subjected to tests and repeated examinations. The family health was found to be at least proper, while language was a different matter. His parents were minimally fluent, the impetus for the trip. Shalva was found to be more technically fluent, loaded up with vocabulary and robotic rote replies but little extemporaneous capability._

 _They had no family in the city. They had money enough to live, and his father had a job prospect, but nothing to convince the Zootopian authorities they were anything more than common foreigners. They were advised to just go to Happytown, but his father had an idea to try and settle among those culturally similar, in Tanukitown. He was a good man, a daring man that wanted the best for his family in a new world. He would see them integrated into the culture of the city._

 _They had made a good effort of it, taking the smallest place they could, sending Shalva to school and doing the jobs they had arranged. They made the effort. They truly tried. But everyone looked at them as others. They didn't belong among the other citizens of Zootopia. If they were not looked on with suspicion, they were derided for their foreign rural roots. They were pushed back, more and more, by cold stares and bitter insults. Pushed to one place._

 _Happytown was there for them. Even if it was mostly predators, there were prey. Prey like them. Prey with heavy accents, prey with foreign habits and foreign thoughts. That was them too. They were among their own kind. Strangers who were the exact same. They were all the same, squeezed into their tiny rooms with frequent cold water and insects trying to take possession of some portion of that space. But they had lived in a harsher environment. They had survived an environment that killed, in surroundings with less sophistication. Their surroundings were not the trouble, it was the ones outside that place that had taken them._

 _He lived through that, grew up in it. His parents worked outside Happytown. He went to school outside of Happytown for as long as it was possible. Other mammals didn't care what they said to them, especially when they found out or inferred they lived among the other discarded in Happytown. His peers and some adults looked down on Shalva for that reason. He was told to go back where he had come from. Go back home. In that squalid little room in Happytown, for all its faults, was a space for life._

 _He **was** home._

 **Author's Notes**

 **Hate-Slang-** There's a lot of it, of course, mostly of my own development. It's pretty self-explanatory but I've had folks ask about other elements I thought were that, so I prefer to err on the side of caution. Cur is a generic insult to other canids. Mutt is a reclaimed insult for a Division Child, especially a passing one. Striper for tigers. Hoofer as a collective generic term for hoofed mammals, typically with an insulting overtone.

 **'Bane-** Wolfsbane, the intoxicant of choice for canids and vulpids. Other species mess around with it, as they do with other botanicals, but such things get exceptionally specific.

 **Sherlock's Backstory-** It's a very loose, very dramatic reinterpretation of the background from the cartoon.

 **The Pipe-** This is a private reference. I had an idea, and still have all my notes and preliminaries for a comic or novel about a boarding house run by a married pair of canines, one of them a retired Japanese doctor shiba inu. She always carried what looked like a meerschaum pipe that was actually an incense burner, with a way to draw in and puff out air without actually smoking it. I always loved the concept, so I gave it to Sherlock. It's beyond appropriate.


	6. What we all want

I do not own Zootopia, that belongs to Disney. This a fan work made solely for the sake of amusement.

" **Let It Go, It's Happytown"**

 **Chapter Five: What We All Want**

 **By: Gabriel LaVedier**

Sherlock's office was also his home, technically. Unlike the intentional action of having apartments over businesses in the Tri-Burrows, it was accidental in Happytown. Those businesses had been zoned, with storage space in a small attic and a second floor to have a second business. But most of those had been converted to living spaces, for a different fee from those that were two-business spaces. The narrow, tall nature of the business made it more comfortable to keep as much extraneous stuff out of the living space as possible. His living space was home to a bedroll, a hot plate, a basin and what other few personal possessions he wanted to hold.

He was still the same immigrant from a backwater nation, who had to do a lot of social catch-up with things that others knew intuitively from a lifetime of being immersed in their influence. Poverty and that limitation meant he was held back from certain things. Appliances and things had to be purchased from thrift shops or somehow gained through inexpensive or free methods.

With the digital nature of the modern era, Sherlock had bowed to pressure and purchased a dated but serviceable old desktop computer from a pawn shop, urged toward the choice by the slick polecat behind the counter assuring him it would continue being functional. So far, it at least worked. The thing was set up on his desk in his office, the jarring intrusion among old family heirlooms and cultural totems of his first home.

The strange thing was truly an anomaly. Among all the muted earth tones and austere shades of red and saffron the rectangle of plastic was a strange, very neon shade of green, with lots of white on other components and dull silvery steel to round out the off color palette. It seemed like a mistake, the color bordering on the sickly, though perhaps some action of time had warped the original color to what it was.

He felt awkward sitting behind it. It wasn't the usual method of gathering information, but Hermione often told him it was the way the world worked. For all the good his master's teachings had done for him, there were still other methods. Sherlock, of course, was not opposed to new things. Learning to deal with an expanded field of possibilities was one of the things that his lessons had instilled, helping him to make the transition somewhat more smoothly than his parents.

He still always mistrusted the overly bright thing of intended-to-be cheerful colors. It could have a mind of its own, and he still only knew what he knew because Hermione had kindly instructed him in the function of the contraption. He occasionally used it to organize case files, though the collection of filing cabinets behind him told the tale of what he actually did with most of his case reports. He also occasionally used it to play solitaire, a shameful habit he did his best to resist. But when the cases were thin and meditation or performing were not helping, the game was there for him.

His least used feature was the one that had engrossed him. Using the internet for research. The device wasn't very powerful, and struggled with many pages. He restricted himself as much as possible to raw text, looking through documents or simple news reports. In passing he found notice of Nick's wedding, as well as the joint wedding of some singer named Gazelle, and what it meant to the city. Echoes. Echoes he scarcely heard high on his mountain. He owed Nick, even if the Cheery Charlie case had been his version of repayment for simple mammalian kindness.

Very little was really being said regarding the case. It was purely a local matter, so far as he could see. What he could see of major news outlets it wasn't even worth mentioning, or warranted a tiny square of print, with a notice that it was suicide, just suicide. No suspicions of foul play, no uncertainty from sources within the ZPD, no notice that the investigation was ongoing. Simple. Neat. Wrapped up and served based on the mere appearance and nothing else. Journalistic integrity subverted to the higher ideal of the status quo and no one rocking the carefully balanced boat. Even if they had just overturned a major social matter, some taboos were still there, because they constituted accumulated guilt.

While individuals were not specifically to blame, they never bothered to change anything, and absorbed some small portion of the harm that resulted. They knew that it had always been wrong to treat Happytown as such, but didn't dare say so. It would have put blame on their family line, and on themselves. Nothing could be done about what the two weddings represented, but they could maintain a stubborn denial. They never did anything wrong if they pretended Happytown didn't exist. Sherlock suspected that was some portion of Mayor Mousawitz's motivation for his continual denial and deflection. Malice and bigotry were unneeded when cowardice and ignorance were fit to explain the whole matter. A minor but important lesson from his venerable master.

His internet explorations grew deeper than usual. He seldom used the thing very long, being the type who preferred to hoof it around the area. It was the most effective thing he knew and it worked for him. His closed cases spoke to the merit in his traditional method. The computer was still useful in an electronic world, but not too much in the company of the poor and disenfranchised, who did things in person, more often than not.

Some folks of Happytown did have an electronic presence, small though it was. They were the involved types, perhaps too involved. While most reasonably concluded that Charlie had been killed by someone, some of them proposed a grand conspiracy arching so far it looped around to blame it on the deposed Dawn Bellwether and her ovine conspiracy. The truth may have been somewhere in the middle. Disentangling truth from speculation was a matter of fineness, peering closely, pulling gossamer thread by gossamer thread, finding the facts amid strings of text. Just like the ancient scrolls, some of it was of the koan variety, some of it was genuine wisdom for all the ages. Mammals were mammals, and puzzling out the general case was part of successfully solving the mammal condition.

Random violence was not unheard of in Happytown, of course. It was part of the culture that had sadly grown up around being abandoned and left to a savage environment where the perpetrators feared no police. But with the clues he had seen, the careful steps and the calculated method for making it look like a sloppily obvious suicide it was clear some kind of conspiracy was involved. Even if only a conspiracy of one insane mammal, it was a careful setup.

The notion of someone disliking Charlie's work was very believable. He had critics even while alive. The gangs regarded him with a confused mix of emotions based on the intelligence and forethought level of the particular reprobate. As he had heard, from those like the thoughtless wolves he had backed away from Officer Wulfberg he was a simple joke, or just another mammal to squeeze. The brighter leaders and middle enforcers knew that his brand of quiet agitation was unlikely to make much direct impact, but could very well make enough noise to bring actual attention onto the place. They didn't want police actually caring. They could have banked on indifference, but the gang way was very rarely so subtle. They would also be loath to hire a prey contract killer, particularly one as meticulous as the one seen.

Larger entities had personal stake in the state of Happytown. Mousawitz, certainly. He considered the whole place a headache, a political hot potato that he had no one to toss it away to. Charlie had been making a lot of loud and potentially embarrassing overtures to the rest of the city, with a receptive ear in Councilor Seedsworth. Getting rid of him ended the problem. And gave him whole new headaches, more focus, and a louder, more daring Seedsworth pushing the issue all the harder. That would be a dead end for sure.

Something in the middle was the way to go, as it often was. Master Bajja had made certain that he remembered the middle way in all things. Someone outside, but interested in Happytown, someone threatened by anything that Charlie could do to bring attention to the place, to clean it up and make it more stable and safe. There was something there. Something to examine.

He had to keep going.

o o o

Afternoon didn't linger that long in Happytown, with the high buildings catching much of the sunlight, all the tight packing leaving it shaded. They were a place of shadows, living in the shade of the larger city, loomed over and made to endure the darkness. The dark space was the right color for Sherlock's mind as he mulled over his considerations.

The first thing that caught his eye as he was walking along was a liquor store on a corner. Small, dark, almost completely covered up by signs advertising the things within. All classes of cheap liquor, cheap snacks and the legal kinds of things that were smoked or chewed. The door occasionally opened, to show the dingy interior, and admit or release someone seeking something.

There was one of those every street or so. Selling the same things, offering the same quick and easy satiation of some hunger or another. The aura of Happytown was strong, and sapped the body. It needed a real solution. In the absence of actual solutions to the systematic problems, illusory temporary solutions abounded and were eagerly consumed. He knew it.

His parents didn't give in to them. Having lived without the structure and focus of the monastery they took on the new life with a kind of stoic ease. They had come to wise decisions without needing the teaching of great masters. That was a lesson that Sherlock could have used.

Without the structure and the presence of Master Bajja, Sherlock slowly lost himself in the unstructured world, filled with disdain. The fear of gangs, the power they supposedly represented, those who moved so freely and smoothly in the terrible circumstance made it all too much.

He forgot. That was the most terrible thing of all, when he fell into the trap Happytown gave. When he fell for the easy solutions and false promises, the worst thing of all was he forgot. The new world had blinded him with bright lights and deafened him with a million voices and an endless sea of machines. Without eyes and ears he reached for the first thing that offered a line. And on that line, a hook.

Vices always started small. One little sip. One little chew. Illicit because of so many reasons, not the least of which being merely having it was unlawful. But those little, cramped and tired stores needed to make money. Nobody saw, nobody told. In theory the city would punish them. But the city didn't care, and he knew it only too well.

It was a time he could scarcely remember. His parents were upset, but he hardly recalled. It was all a long haze. Lost weekend was hardly how he would have phrased it, at the time or after. He knew that something had happened then. He still had the information that he learned at the time, and he didn't just have a big, black gap of nothingness there. It was merely a mist, a shameful haze that took him.

In taking him, the haze also took him away. In that time he could see why the lost and hopeless mammals of Happytown did what they did with false promises and easy false solutions. For a pittance they could chew something or drink something and forget they lived in Happytown. Just like the wolf had said of Gazelle's tigers, but writ large and repeatedly. He walked by any number of half-conscious zombies. He had been a half-conscious zombie, surviving in bliss, in an imitation Shambhala built of lies and chemicals. His mind was sanctuary and prison, stunned and stupefied into that unreality.

In forgetting his old master he was lured to his false satori at the bottom of every bottle and every pinch of his preferred vice. He had, at that bottom, considered other things. Things not sold in the dark shops. Things that were even less controlled, and even more terrible. The forgetting had made him fall, but one remembering stopped his descent.

In the midst of the haze of one bad day, in the mist from his intoxication, he was faced by a shadowy form, flowing and flapping in an unfelt wind. The looming figure was unmistakable. "Master Bajja! You... you're here? How? Why would you ever leave the monastery, venerable master?"

The shadow approached, moving without seeming to do anything but float through the mist. It came nearer and nearer, the shaded face still managing to pierce deep into Sherlock's soul. His speed was as tremendous as ever. A swift motion slapped the old, familiar wooden-braced paper fan against Sherlock's head. "I am not here, my young disciple. You are calling me up because you truly understand what you need."

"Tell me, master, what is it I require?"

"You know it all. When in the monastery you were attached to it, but detached from the concerns around you. You do not have me there, but you have my wisdom. Why does that not suffice you, young yak?"

"I-it becomes easy to forget. Without the structure, the walls of the monastery and the hold of it, the order... I need them, venerable master. I need to seek them, and have them."

"Walls? Walls? Nothing could be less real than walls," the vision said, the fan once more finding the contrite Sherlock's head. "Life is only real if you face it. You live where you do and make your way with clarity. You have order, you have structure, you have wisdom. Why don't you ever use it?"

"This place..." Sherlock began.

Another strike silenced the prevarication. "Terrible as it is there are ways to survive. You see others make their way along with unbowed heads. Your own parents could instruct you in the way of humble motion, letting the place wash over you like the wind you learned to let gently blow across your back. Think of it like those freezing winds. Be cut by them, stung and sliced and pushed down to be buried in snow, or let them flow off your form, along your body, lifting you, letting you rise against the wind. Remember, a kite rises when confronted, not when left alone."

Sherlock knelt there, in his mind, in his room, surrounded by the tokens of his shame. The image of Master Bajja was gone, never there, but always there. The walls were an illusion. Happytown was an illusion. The whole world was an illusion, but he had to exist within the illusion. Until he could escape the cycle of desire he needed to persevere to reach that final ideal.

Seeing the truth was always easy. Grasping the truth was always painful. Whether by freezing, straining to remain awake, knocks to the head or some other means, there was always pain. Even if the body was only an image it fought hard to be seen as real. The pain of nature inserted itself into the mind, and made everyone suffer. Escaping suffering was the goal, he knew that. But to escape it, he had to pass through it.

The need he had grown for that falsehood was like the pain of attachment to the world concentrated and made enormous and inescapable. His very blood burned for that. One chew. One swallow. He ached with need, and put it aside with his memories. Those years of study, those years learning to resist pain, need and the world itself. Those were his only means of survival. He had no other choice. He had to let the poison work its way out of his system, while he endured it. It hurt. It hurt like nothing in his life had ever hurt, because the pain was coming from inside, his own body was turning against him, and he had to outlast it.

And with Master Bajja's wisdom, he did.

His contemplative walk had led him to a small area, filled with those who would have happily fed his illusions, had he finally given in. They weren't as blatant as cheap media and ignorant depictions showed, but they feared no police, no real retaliation from anyone of any power.

"My bull, my bull, my bull, you know you need a little something to take the edge off the day. It's never a good day in Happytown, and we all need a little something to get along," a deep-voiced wolf said, following Sherlock as he went by. He wanted to look like he belonged, but Sherlock could just feel that he was wrong. He didn't belong. He was there to make a quick buck at someone's behest, as it ever was.

"Not a tin or corn. You don't belong here, and we both know it," Sherlock casually said.

The wolf grunted and narrowed his eyes at Sherlock. "What are you sayin'? Get out of here with that! Just giving you some good quality happiness, just getting..."

"I can tell. Your clothes are too crisply ruined, your attitude too rehearsed. You have the air of a bad actor pretending your district. Someone hired you to suck money out of Happytown like a leech sucking blood out of an ailing body. At the very, very least, our local peddlers of illusory Shangri-La keep their money inside the district. They destroy us much more slowly," Sherlock casually noted, still walking on.

The wolf snarled and turned away. "Moon-cursed PIs! You idiots should wear signs! At least those eclipsed cops wear those stupid uniforms!"

"Respect them, even if they oppose you," Sherlock casually said as he strolled past.

The area where the pushers stood was near one of the many 'floating' locations that served as a congregation point for many of the _professional dates_ of Happytown. No amount of living in Happytown could destroy the natural beauty of the mammalian form, but they tried to augment it with as much cheap makeup as they could, skewing their features in odd directions. In trying too hard they made clear the desperation that came of living in a desperate situation with a lack of proper job opportunities.

The scanty clothing of the ones offering themselves gave every indication they intended to shed them as soon as possible. Those that could wore shoes, heels that reminded Sherlock uncomfortably of Hermione. One bad influence, one missed opportunity and the job prospects for even a brilliant stoat like her would turn to a market that was not yet saturated. With all the blown kisses and leg-showing come-ons, there still were not too many of them.

"Ladies... I know you have little enough reason to care but if you know anything about Charlie... I need some kind of lead," Sherlock said, taking out his notebook and preparing to write.

"Hey, hey, no broke PIs. Pay up to get something, haystack," a leggy wolf in a mini skirt and halter top said, puffing on a cigarette that reeked of cloves.

"Shut it, Roxy! You know what Charlie meant to this cesspool," a coyote snapped, smoothing out her sheath dress. "He never bought a date, but he bought me dinner more times than I can remember. He cared. Look... I want to help. But I don't know anything. He talked about his plans for Happytown, but he never said anyone was after him."

"'After him' my flanks. He killed himself. You know he killed himself. Why are you fooling yourself?" A zebra asked, snorting softly after speaking and reflexively rubbing an arm.

"No, he did not. He was murdered, and the police know it. I was there when it was proved. They just cannot say anything because the official story is stamped and sealed. But he did not kill himself. Are you sure? No one said anything?" Sherlock asked.

"Nothing. He was just too happy about everything. He loved this place, for some reason, and all his plans for what he was going to do with it. I like that he helped with the prices. Nice not thinking I'm out on my tail if I can't get enough _dates_ in a week," the coyote said with a soft chuckle that turned into a cough.

"I promise you, I plan to do everything I can to prove someone killed him, who did it and why. I can only guess at it all," Sherlock sighed.

"Hey, haystack, you don't have to ask why," Roxy growled, spitting out dark colored phlegm and taking another drag from her cig. "This is Happytown. They don't need a reason why. They just need us dead and out of the way."

o o o

Sherlock was never one to give up, but all the thousand worm trails on the internet were a swirling mass of confusion. They clarified and clouded in almost equal measure. Every conspiracy theory alleged that it was true and evident but always ended up a mass of speculation or a collection of disparate facts cobbled together with no indication of what did the heavy lifting of connection. Abject and overt skyhookery.

He took up his pipe-burner and a small collection of stone jars sealed with cork. Each jar contained a quantity of dully colored paste, each of which he carefully sniffed. Using a small metal hook he dug out some amount of paste and scraped it onto a cupped area in the pipe's bowl. Once a large enough mass of it had been built up he scraped a flint chunk with the other side of his metal hook until the sparks ignited the small lump, setting it to smolder. A few quick pumps of the button on the side had it pouring with a sweetly scented smoke precisely designed to match and shift his mood from frustrated to centered.

He breathed deeply, letting the familiar melange envelop him. His vice was small, and gentle, and ancient. He set the pipe on a small stand and gave it another pump, getting a good cloud of smoke around his face. He picked up a rather plain deep copper bowl, and a polished quartz rod with one end wrapped with cork. A small tap made the bowl resonate with a deep, low tone, which he turned into a ringing, sustained note by running the cork against the rim of the metal. He adjusted the tone, louder and softer with the varying speed of rubbing the edge.

After some time of manipulating the tone and clearing his head he opened his mouth wide and let out a low, moaning noise, a guttural tone that emerged from deep within him and almost rang in time with the low tones of his bowl. He worked a simple tune, one that he recalled from one of the other acolytes who had come from a distant land and taught him the strange but fascinating technique.

The rhythmic humming of the bowl combined with the two-toned throat singing, bouncing around the office, practically ringing off the various metal bowls, small gongs and chimes that populated his collection of shelves. He surrounded himself with the trappings of the old world, with things that reminded him of an old home he had hardly ever lived in. His life had been one of ascetic detachment, lacking possessions as a matter of course. But in a new life and a new world all those old things that represented the empty monastery and poorly furnished home meant everything. Being surrounded by them represented continuity, maintaining the connection to that place and those times.

His neighbors had never complained about the frequent, impromptu performances of singing bowl and throat singing, leaving Sherlock impressed with the soundproofing of the cheap construction. It was either accidental quality or it was stuffed with toxic components slowly killing them all. His singing almost stopped as a soft chuckle threatened to emerge. Hermione's dark realism was rubbing off on him.

Though each portion of the tune was essentially cyclical he wound it down slowly, his head cleared and mood improved. The bowl was set back aside and he slowly made his way out of the office, carrying his smoking pipe-burner. He was prepared to say he was going out but recalled Hermione had already gone home for the day. He had seen the writing on the wall, that nothing of substance would get done. A dark pall fell as he left the office and locked the door behind him.

The sun was low again. Being an office-bound type who spent a lot of time meditating while the sun shone it always seemed to be dark. Coming down to the office early in the morning and going back up or out to shop at vesper markets. On the sacred mother, even in the height of summer, the whipping wind and freezing mist shrouded the courtyard, which was seldom visited. Home was always dark, by nature of by the imposition of the hateful surrounding them.

"Charlie... I wish you had given us more of an indication," Sherlock sighed, bringing the smoke closer to his snout to take a long, slow inhale of the calming scent. His mind swam with all the theories that he had found, threads snaking between each, connecting and dissolving as the tenuous links failed in their ability to hold together. The lines didn't connect.

Another sniff was interrupted by an unexpected acrid note and a sound that he seldom heard. A siren screamed in the growing evening, echoing wildly around the tight-packed buildings. Emergency services were rare in Happytown. They weren't disallowed. Half was a reluctance to serve the area, half a reluctance for the mistreated to actually use them, even if their taxes paid for them. His trained ears picked out the rough location and specific type of siren. That particular whining tone belonged to an engine of the ZFD, denoting a real emergency not far from his building.


	7. Flip

I do not own Zootopia, that belongs to Disney. This a fan work made solely for the sake of amusement.

" **Let It Go, It's Happytown"**

 **Chapter Six: Flip**

 **By: Gabriel LaVedier**

Sherlock broke into a run, trotters clacking loudly on the uneven pavement, one hoof holding his pipe-burner and the other keeping his canoe-like hat between his horns. His breath huffed in a deep, regular rhythm, calling on his training. He looked calm, keeping his composure as he rushed down the block and sharply took the corner to reach the source of the smoke.

Whipping quickly around the corner brought him to the scene right as the fire engine screamed its way onto the scene, several yellow-clad mammals leaping off the vehicle and working to work with the rusted hydrant, a tiger ranting about the caked, crystalline traces of reeking urine on it.

The building was a fairly ordinary one for the area, largely fronted with brick and concrete, narrow, high, and seemingly abandoned. There were such places all over, too ruined and fetid for the most unscrupulous slumlords to even try and rent. They were architectural corpses, the skeletons of the past picked clean and left to bleach. Fire roared from the boarded-up windows of broken glass and twisted protective iron bars, and also licked like a thousand hungry tongues from the yawning entrance.

The leaping red and yellow flames lit up the increasing darkness, casting a hideous brightness over the street, outdoing the weak or absent streetlights that popped on as the firefighters hit the house with the huge hoses in the hands of several burly mammals who could handle the immense pressure. Those smaller than the ones spraying it down were daring to approach, calling out for anyone within, some holding back the crowd that was starting to appear.

"Sir, please step back, that... unusual substance... is not conducive to safety..." one of the firefighter deer said. "I don't mean to tell you..."

"Spiced incense from my homeland," Sherlock said, cutting off the statement. "You may have smelled the same in Tanukitown."

"Right... Vineland... forgot that there were prey here," the buck said. "Still, keep back, we have enough smoke already."

"Was that 1540 Rathbone?" Sherlock asked, peering at the buildings around the one on fire, the numbers having been faded or knocked off, made worse by the darkness and the inconsistent light of the fire.

"Yes, sir, did you know of anyone living in there?" The buck queried, reaching up to prep the radio attached to his shoulder.

"It's been abandoned for years, but I had heard about someone using it after the landlords abandoned it and left it in limbo. I'm certain there was some kind of activity going on inside, but I don't know how many would have been involved," Sherlock said, holding back the specifics of what he knew. It was illegal activity, the soft kind. Low-grade gambling. Craps, poker, blackjack, a small-scale place to waste money on chances that are stacked to the sky against the gamblers.

"Hey, guys, according to someone from the crowd there may have been squatters inside, unknown number," the buck said into his radio.

" _Unknown number? Someone in the crowd? We need better before we risk our lives on this dungheap."_

"Sir, if you have any more concrete evidence, that might be helpful..." the buck started.

Sherlock reached into his pocket and pulled out his PI license, which he had in a wallet section that also had his folded letter of reference from Councilor Seedsworth, with his name displayed. "Sherlock Gyag, city licensed Private Investigator. I'm familiar with the area and have good reason to believe the reports I heard of mammals inside are correct."

The buck clicked his radio again, looking carefully at the license and tangentially at the letter. "Guy's city licensed as a PI, says he knows the area. Also looks like he's working for Councilor Seedsworth on something so he's gotta be in the know."

" _Read you! Once we knock down the worst of it we'll go in a sweep for anyone trapped!"_

"Thank you for the information, Mr... Gyag. I hope we can find those inside alive," the buck said, moving down the perimeter to push back those trying to get a better look at the inferno.

Sherlock pulled back slightly, his position being filled in by curious onlookers watching the firefighters attacking the leaping flames. Sherlock watched with a detached look, unable to really think about the raw destruction. Lives were ruined, in his normal understanding, in small increments. Small chips flaked away from life, a slow death of a thousand cuts in the squalor of Happytown. That much bombastic destruction was abnormal, and horrifying.

An accident, surely. Unregulated gamblers would hardly follow every conventional safety protocol, on every level. No electricity unless they patched it in from somewhere with questionable cables and capabilities. They might use fire if they couldn't scrounge up enough and strong enough battery powered lights. They'd have open alcohol, probably some stronger substances, making them less than responsible with anything they happened to have. Tragic, truly, but it was the way of things living on the margins.

"Sweet silver, that could have been me," a hushed voice in the crowd said, while watching the firefighters pull a body from within.

"What? You've got a home. It's spoor but it's a place," another voice said, equally softly and anonymously.

"No! That's where Fleabite was setting up that floating game of his. Cursed fool, he was doing too good for this..." the first voice said.

"Wonder if that's him," the second voice casually said, while another body was brought out of the building.

"With his luck, he'll live. He cleaned me out plenty," the first voice complained.

"No one's that lucky. Didn't matter. What was the matter? It was just a little game."

"You had no idea. That game was going places. He had the nicest looking girls from off the corners, quality 'bane and 'nip, really classing it up. All our money at least made it fun to lose."

"Poor, stupid cur. Idiot should never have moved to one of these dumps, should have kept renting from the gangs."

Gangs. If he was making money, from the street women and drugs as well as gambling... They would want their cut. They always wanted a cut, big and meaty and enough to hold their gluttonous maws open. They made a good explanation. It probably was that. Not everything needed to be complicated.

A single look at one of the bodies brought out and examined for the potential to resuscitate ended the idea of an accident. The burn pattern was around the neck, with melted material that had to have been some kind of garrotte. Plastic would melt and burn away. But they would never look into that. Gangs were possible, gangs were the answer, never mind that they were too wild to be so methodical. Maybe outside gangs were more methodical and surgical but none of the brute force gangs of Happytown would do that.

The buck was still there, holding back the crowd, and had noticed his small dispensation from Councilor Seedsworth. Moral flexibility was life, sometimes. Mammals still involved in the business of living had the need to live and wanted to help others keep living. Someone needed to make hard choices when there came a very difficult time.

"Sir! Sir!" Sherlock pushed his way back to the front of the crowd, motioning to the firefighter while pulling his wallet back out.

"Yes, did you recall something else? Looks like you were right..." the buck said, sadly shaking his head.

Sherlock pulled out the card Officer Wulfberg had given him, passing it over. "Call the ZPD, immediately. This might get swept under the rug. And it should not. This officer is active in Happytown. Have the examiners note the necks of everyone pulled out. Some or all of them should have melted plastic around their necks and around their heads. There was a murder involving someone suffocated with zip-ties and a plastic bag. And just from what I can see, there may have been zip-ties involved."

The buck was confused for a good, long moment, repeatedly reading the card and looking up at Sherlock. A quick glance at the neck of one of the ones who failed to be resuscitated revealed the charred and melted line of black plastic and the small residual traces of clear plastic. "Guys, somebody call the ZPD. Homicide. Ask for this guy... Officer Louis Wulfberg."

" _ZPD? Homicide? We've got a lot of suffocation here, just as we expected, and some burning. That's all."_

"Seedsworth's PI got me to look closer. Check the necks. Melted zip-ties. Maybe some plastic bags. Said ZPD homicide is looking at some guy that got killed the same way."

" _Ah sweet plenty! You have to tell me to look! Fire did a number on these poor saps, but it didn't eliminate them all. Never would have seen it without looking for it... keep that PI there. We need him."_

"Sir, think you can stay around or leave a card?" The buck asked.

"I certainly will stay. This is important. This might be something bigger than you think," Sherlock said boldly, watching the building smolder. Bigger than he thought. Charlie was obvious. A random card game with drugs and eye candy, that was less obvious. But elements connected them together. Like it or not, they were linked by death.

It was an hour or so before the fire had been put out and the scene secured, with the crowd dwindling down to nothing as the excitement and danger waned. Ambulances had been called, to bear away the bodies of those found within, thankfully only a few. They had likely been caught while setting up, before any of the players had shown up. The firefighters remained and were joined by a small number of ZPD officers, including Officer Wulfberg.

The streets were once more filled with wavering light, dome lights form ambulances, the fire engine and a police cruiser washing the scene in a brighter shade of crimson. The various official mammals were talking to each other, taking pictures or writing up reports. One of them stalked right up to Sherlock with a will.

"You! Just what do you think you're doing?!" Louis demanded.

"Making observations and noticing the deaths of my neighbors. I do not know them, but they are that," Sherlock responded, evenly.

"You're making a lot of noise! A lot of very, very unwanted noise!"

"Good, it must be made. But it was never my intention to make it. If it happens it happens because of what I find. It is not my fault," Sherlock mildly retorted.

"You're another Happytowner. That craven rat at City Hall will crush you like a bug and never even care," Louis hissed.

"Never. Councilor Seedsworth would never allow it."

"I heard you used his name. He's going to yank his support. You can't just go around using names like that. You used mine too, and I really, really didn't want that to happen. I had a date tonight, and I wanted it to go... somewhere besides back here to Happytown," Louis huffed.

"Much more important than death," Sherlock quietly said.

Louis was silent for a long while, eyes shifting around while he ground his teeth. "You're done. I don't care how unfair it is. No one cares how unfair it is. Bogo's going to bust me down to meter enforcement until he can figure out how to make me do something even less dignified to make me quit. The Councilor is going to make the city strip you of every shred of dignity until you'll be lucky if you can get a job panhandling. The whole investigation is dead, and it's never coming back."

"Officer Wulfberg?" One of the firefighters that had been involved in recovering the bodies tapped Louis on the shoulder and presented him with a clipboard.

"What? What's this?" Louis asked.

"I called the ME for confirmation about a pattern. He wasn't sure how anyone got his notes but he confirmed it. You're the investigating officer on the case, I need your signature to confirm the facts noted in this report. ZFD arson investigation will come in once we know we might be dealing with some kind of serial killer hiding his tracks."

Louis hesitated, holding onto the clipboard and sightlessly dragging his eyes across the handwritten lines talking about potential melted zip-ties and plastic bags. "Someone must care. Someone has to make the unfairness even out. There may be one who does not, but others do, and you know it."

Though halting and shaky, the signature was put on the papers, and Louis looked shaken by the whole endeavor. "What did I do?"

"You cared," Sherlock said with a resolute nod. "Whatever the cost, how could it be unworthy? This must change. It will change."

o o o

" _I never knew eyes could pop out of a skull that far! I realize rodents can have a goggled look but Mousawitz was ready to fire his orbs like taser probes!"_

The next day, after a long evening of questions and examinations, Sherlock was sitting behind his desk, talking on the land-line to Councilor Seedsworth. He had expected the call, but not the content. "I didn't realize the mayor would get that upset..."

" _Apoplectic! Absolutely apoplectic! He thought he had suppressed everything but he was so gloriously wrong. He was furious with me, more because he knew he could do nothing. The ZFD drew inferences that were not correct but did their jobs admirably and completely. The facade that everything is fine has cracked. If only I could get the media to care. They'll get involved, I promise you."_

"I'm glad that my accidental show of your name didn't offend you, sir. I had an estimation that it might not do any harm but there was still some uncertainty..." Sherlock began.

" _Mr. Gyag, I gave you a small advance to direct official attention to Happytown and this investigation. Loose as the connection may be, it's unique enough that even our resident intentional obstructionist was forced to begrudgingly admit, through literally griited teeth, there was some smoke to the fire I, and you, see. It's not a lot, and the ZPD are still barred from regarding it as a murder, pending the arson investigation, and the medical examiner's thwarted observations. But it's out there now. That's the base of something significant."_

"I certainly hope it is. Meanwhile, there is still an investigation. No matter how alike, I have no clue about why. I understood Charlie. I can grasp the illegal gambling. But they have no obvious connection, beyond the murderer," Sherlock mused.

" _I have a reasonable trust in you, Mr. Gayg. A reasoned estimation of expected capability."_

"I can appreciate your level and measured words, Mr. Seedsworth. Very few are as enlightened to understand the true value of considered words and contemplation," Sherlock said.

" _And I appreciate your response. Everyone wants me to have faith in them. I'm a businessmammal. I don't have faith in anyone, I go by what they have done, and allocate my trust if I have a reason or a proper, instinctual feeling that makes them worthy of it. I... I have faith in my wife, because the heart is an irrational thing. But no one else."_

"I wish you were the mayor, Mr. Seedsworth. You are what we need in this time. And for situations like this," Sherlock said with a nod.

" _My constituents and the city will determine that at a later date. But thank you for that vote of confidence. I know you don't apportion confidence freely either. Remain vigilant. I'll do what I can in the chamber, and you continue your excellent work. You and I both know there's more to this, and this fire is proof. Good luck, Mr. Gyag."_

"Luck favors the studious," Sherlock said, hanging up the phone and looking aside to his stack of papers, some from Louis, some from the firefighter he had interacted with, plus the original copies of things that Nick had given him. Flipping through them offered little in the way of concrete clues, as he expected. It would take more hooves-on-the-ground work to put facts together into something meaningful.

Facts were inert chunks, useless in isolation. They were like bricks or boards. They were fine things to have but of more use if they could be built together, nailed or cemented into a structure that made a solid form. Gathering the facts was tedious busywork. Constructing the facts into that perfect structure was both a science and an art, one that his venerable master had honed and shaped with his own science and art. A beautiful example of the continuity of living and tradition.

A knock sounded out, knuckles rapping solidly on the glass of the door to Sherlock's office. It was Hermione's day off, but he hadn't bothered to turn the sign around saying he was closed. It was a habit to turn the sign when he came down for the day after sadly having to turn away the late Vesper and Night shift mammals. He could take on a visitor without Hermione. "Come in, please."

The door opened up to reveal a lanky, dusky coyote in an open blue-checked flannel work shirt with a white undershirt beneath, a pair of baggy but belted blue jeans on his lower half. "Mr. Sherlock, yes?"

Sherlock looked the coyote over, noting the frequency of his rubbing of his arms and the rake lines in his fur. "And you are the infamous Fleabite. You must be as lucky as I've heard."

"My reputation precedes me, I see," Fleabite said with a nod of his head. "I may have organized a... gathering of interested parties for games of chance, but I don't set them up. I delegate, if you understand me."

"I understand you perfectly," Sherlock said, lightly clacking his hooftips together in front of his face. "I have many speculations about how you found out about me. Are you here to offer insights into why your creation was so thoroughly destroyed?"

"I have speculations, as you might imagine," Fleabite said, sitting at the chair in front of Sherlock's desk. "Gangs come to mind. Renting space is mutually beneficial... so they tell me. Striking out on my own is much more profitable, however..."

Sherlock interrupted with a shake of his head. "Non-starter. No gang would be so finely careful. The brutality of the number of bodies, it seems superficially possible. But the method is too precise. Covering murder with arson is nothing they would do. It also points to a case I'm already working, with the same method of death."

Fleabite nodded slowly, drumming his claws on his arm and absentmindedly scratching at the fur. "Vice is always profit. Vice without law is still a vice that exists. And mammals want their vices at almost any price. It's not endless, but it's very hard to price a mammal out of an addiction they want."

Sherlock twitched, slightly, nodding slowly. "You speak from experience, I can tell. I heard some stories of 'nip and 'bane, and females from corners."

"You know a lot. You hear a lot. Must be why that prey from outside trusts you, how you managed to get the ZPD to care about someone small and harmless, like me," Fleabite said, claws digging into his arms.

"I don't care about your vices, but I care about who has attacked our home. They killed Charlie, and they killed the poor unfortunates that worked for you. I won't say a thing to the ZPD. This is Happytown, we have flexibility for survival. You need answers. We all need answers, not an unneeded investigation."

Fleabite relaxed a touch, drumming his claws again. "I'm glad we can understand each other, as civilized mammals. It would seem that your case has a certain overlap with mine. There would be no conflict of interest in investigating both, would there?"

"I have no absolute proof the cases are linked. But there exists such a strong supposition discovering there is no connection would be a miracle of a semi-religious nature. Working one would not take away from the other, merely send me to separate locations to find the traces of the same trail."

The coyote rose and offered a hand. "Name your up-front, Mr. Sherlock. Even burned out I still have the money that I earned before. Solve one, solve all. I have a powerful need to know and, ideally, have them taken care of in some way. Rotting away in the Sweatbox or the Cooler. Or literally rotting away in Sahara Square or Tundratown. It matters little to me."

Sherlock shook the offered hand, firmly nodding his head. "I have a fixed fee plus expenses, that I will have receipts for." He reached into his desk and pulled out a few sheets of paper, printed with a contract. "It's all right here. Just sign on the dotted line and give me the money indicated within three days."

"You're in a very special position, Mr. Sherlock," Fleabite said, picking up a pen from the desk and signing along the indicated line. "I seldom, if ever, put anything in writing. Ink is a prison. But for this, this is important."

Sherlock took the papers and tore off the top, to separate them, keeping the top sheet and the carbon paper in the middle, passing over the yellow carbon copy to Fleabite. "I will give you all my skill, as I will for Councilor Seedsworth. You will have your answers."

Fleabite looked down at the yellow paper for a long, silent moment, disbelief on his face. He finally broke out into a howling laugh, folding the yellow paper and stuffing it into his pocket. "The old ways still exist. Good. Modern methods are sometimes thrown off by such. Very clever. Well, I'll leave you to your work. The money will be delivered with all due speed. Good day, Mr. Sherlock." With a final nod of his head he left the office and shut the door behind him.

Sherlock sat there for a time, looking at the signed contract while slowly stroking his chin. He picked up his phone and punched the button labeled _Hermione_.

" _Allô? M. Gyag?"_

"The plot thickens, Mlle. LaBelle. I'm sure you heard about the fire, and all the sudden interest from the ZFD and the ZPD."

" _I was made aware. Hard to not notice such a thing, even with how large and insulated the place is. The notice from those that never cared before seemed to have shocked the sensibilities of my neighbors. Most unusual. Am I to believe that you had some hoof in this whole affair, monsieur?"_

"There was a series of inferences and small errors that allowed me to note that those in the fire did not die in it, but were killed the same way as Charlie. With more actions and the intervention of Officer Wulfberg the arson investigators of the ZFD came to the fore. They will perform a detailed analysis. And the ZPD will now have to take seriously the loss of life."

" _I was correct when I told C. Wulfberg you had special powers."_

"Amusing, Mlle. LaBelle. But it's more than that. The fire was set to cover the killings of those involved with a small gambling den that had been growing larger and successful. The head of it just came to see me because my actions got attention focused on what happened. He just signed a contract to hire me to investigate who killed the ones working for him."

" _With pay, monsieur?"_

"I feel that I can trust this fellow. For all his making money on vice, he seems to be a businessmammal, much like the esteemed Councilor Seedsworth. It's extra padding. Food in our mouths and roofs over our heads to track two different crimes to a common source. Solve one, solve both."

" _I suppose, then, M. Gyag, that I will have to change from this blue swimsuit, leave my tea and book and come down from soaking up the sun on the roof to scamper into the office?"_

Sherlock chuckled softly and leaned back in his chair. "Enjoy your day off, Mlle. LaBelle. There is still chaos surrounding all of this. You'll need all the rest you can get, now that new information has come to light indicating how much bigger this whole matter is. I'll see you bright and early tomorrow."

 **Author's Notes**

 **'Nip and 'Bane-** Just in case it wasn't clear, catnip and wolfsbane. Fleabite doesn't discriminate.

 **A miracle of a semi-religious nature-** Just to note this isn't mine. This is a line from james Randi that I love so much I had to put it somewhere.


	8. Double Down

I do not own Zootopia, that belongs to Disney. This a fan work made solely for the sake of amusement.

" **Let It Go, It's Happytown"**

 **Chapter Seven: Double Down**

 **By: Gabriel LaVedier**

"Mlle. LaBelle, I respect your desire to be an investigator but there are professionals looking into this," Sherlock said, his arms crossed over his chest. He was standing just inside Hermione's meager room, the little cracker box apartment larger than her needs but so basic it was still affordable.

It was a single, modest square, a ceiling tall enough to allow Sherlock to stand up in it, giving amazing headroom for Hermione herself. He would have had a time sleeping there, being about the size of the room, if not a little shorter. But there were furnishings there taking up more space. A bed sized for her, little more than the box and a thin mattress covered in rather fancy sheets that had seen better days, embroidered and decorated with lace, likely inherited from her family and from the old country. A small pawn shop refrigerator was in one corner, with a microwave set on top of it, her kitchen completed with a low metal sink and tap, along with a hot plate with the cord wrapped around it for the time being.

The rest of it was decorated in early pawn shop, a battered chest of draws with dull and dingy hardware, a low desk with a leg propped up with a thickly folded paper bag, a few low wooden stools scattered around, and one bit of vanity, a full-length mirror. The glass was still whole, the wooden frame was polished and the whole thing was the best looking item in the room.

"Tch, professionals," Hermione scoffed. She had one paw up on one of the stools, settled in front of the mirror. "What good are they? Those cavies were professionals too, we had to do their job for them." Her fingers smoothed her fur, pads on her fingers gently brushing her pelt down, from the middle of her thigh all the way down to her paw. She smoothed the fur of the top of her paw, flicking quickly over each toe, giving a little wiggle to examine her filed-down toe-claws. "I trust few of these outsiders. This Bogo we hear of, C. Wulfberg, M. Seedsworth. We may only trust ourselves." She picked up a fishnet stocking from the stool, already rolled up to the black-mesh-covered toe portion. She slid her paw into the little netted nylon tube and used both thumbs and her fingers to keep the thing stretched out as she drew it up, doing her best to keep it from dragging her silken fur up. She finally released it, elastic lightly slapping against her thigh. She reached under her dress hem and carefully clipped small clasps onto the edge for extra security. "The ZFD mean nothing. If I will be a detective, I will detect, and that is the reality of it, monsieur."

Sherlock looked on with an impassive gaze, his eyes tastefully focused on her face in the mirror, a slow nod following. "I understand that, Mlle. LaBelle. I understand well that drive. But even if we have permission to investigate there are others who can. I think we owe it to the name of peace to give these outsiders a chance to do the job they trained to do."

"I thought better of you, M. Gyag," Hermione said, placing her other paw up on the stool slightly tilted, her dainty pawpads visible in the mirror. She smoothed her fur once more, wiggling the plumped but comparatively dainty toes afterward, letting them more easily fit into the tight black mesh portion of the other fishnet stocking. She gave the largest pad of her paw a soft rub with her thumbs, checking the smoothness of the plump black surface before pulling the stocking slowly up once again. "I... I still think well of you, of course. But I thought you were here for Happytown. You have our interests at heart." She clipped the stocking in place and sighed. "How can I trust? The hate is so real, monsieur. I must always remember the cavies and how they failed."

" **They** failed," Sherlock said, with extra emphasis on the pronoun. "Not strangers. Not a faceless collective. Not agents of an oppressive state executing a plan. Not any number of things. They. Those cavies. Mlle. LaBelle I thought better of _you_. Far, far better. I chose you out of any other in this place because I thought you were intelligent, filled with raw talent that could be molded into a perfectly sensible detective. But you have to understand that life is made of single individuals. Vast forces may move in waves but at the bottom of each there are those directing and those following orders. As my venerable master would always say, we think of the crushing snowbank but the wise sage knows it is made of tiny flakes of snow. Blame the larger group if you must, but it was those little flakes of snow that chilled your long spine, and only them."

Hermione was silent for a long while, clipping her second stocking onto her garter belt. "Your tongue is sharp today, monsieur. Sharp as your mind. Please do not misunderstand. I appreciate you giving me this job. This opportunity to become what I knew I could become. I cannot express my gratitude. But I see these things clear as you see the things you see. I cannot always prove them and that is a weakness I accept I have. I am not yet your equal, and I suspect that may be impossible. I doubt any could be..."

"Lift yourself from that thought. We are all equal. You say it yourself, we are all wretches here," Sherlock said. "This is a mundane thing. You will learn to refine your gaze. You will see as finely as I do. And someday I will learn to see as far as you."

"Far... in darkness," Hermione sighed. "Monsieur, you see as well. Better than others. Tell me you know. You must know. Hope is a luxury we so seldom may pay for." She settled her right paw in one of her high heels, squishing her soft toepads against the base at the front and bending, the fat main pad settling securely against the shoe. She pulled the straps into place, getting them comfortably snug, pushing the metal piece through the well-worn hole. Strap by strap she got the article secured for the day.

"Hope is not a luxury. It cannot be. It is a thing that belongs to every mammal. Mademoiselle... I know you think you know what you know because you live here and have long enough to know it. I come from a place far away and lived in it long enough to know things about the world. We had no real hate in that place, everyone had a hate for everyone else but no government told them to. But we had poverty. My family was poor. I lived in austerity, intentionally. We all had little, but we still could afford hope. It is what brought us here to Zootopia. Even with hate that sent us here to Happytown, we had hope. I still hold hope. It is no luxury, it is only what all need and all hold. Even you. If you did not I would find a morning where you did not come into work. You would be gone. You would be gone and I would be without you, if you had no hope. Am I without you, Mademoiselle LaBelle?"

Hermione was silent, moving methodically, mechanically adjusting the artful straps, crossing them properly, manipulating the small metal bits to hook them through the holes. It was a robotic act. Her deft musteline digits worked the material to make it all look just right, being more fastidious than usual. "Sharp. Sharp as a blade. Mind and tongue. Non, monsieur. You will not find me missing from your door when I must work. I am but a poor immigrant. So are you. We are equal. I have hope, as you say. But some days it is..."

"Dark," Sherlock said along with her. "Yes. We live in the shadow of the looming city, with their cold eyes looking down. But there is still a sun shining beyond. In the swirling snow storm, in the shrouding icy mist and coldness there was still the sun, still shining as bright as ever. Dark as it may be, we know the light is there. Let us continue to remember."

"You are not for this place," Hermione said, planting her properly shod paws on the ground, standing straight and tall, even on the tiny spikes of her heels. "You are far better, monsieur. You do not belong here."

"We both were not born here, but this is still my home. Is it yours?" Sherlock asked. "You don't have to answer. I know you, deep into the core. I know every bit, and the answer is plain. If you will investigate, let me go with you a pace."

"I can stand on my own two paws, M. Gyag," Hermione said, with her snout raised higher than necessary. "But... it would be unkind to refuse a polite and sincere offer. I hope my absence from the office will not affect the workday too harshly."

"You're not actually a secretary, you're an understudy, by your own words," Sherlock said, closing the door after Hermione walked out of the room. "Eventually I will have to learn to be without you for a sustained period of time. You will walk the same path that I do, investigating."

Hermione laughed, her heels clicking along the hard floor of her apartment building, holding the door open for Sherlock to let him out onto the street. "I cannot wait. It will be a glorious day when I transform this provisional license of mine into a proper one. But of course, that will only be a formality. It will mean nothing until you tell me I have learned it all."

"No one ever learns it all. But you can, Mlle. LaBelle, learn enough. I only know enough, surely not as much as my venerable master. But it suffices. I do not lament what I do not know, but I treasure all the things I know. That makes it possible to keep moving forward," Sherlock said, taking his usual calm strides as Hermione clicked her way rapidly beside him.

"Enough to satisfy you, then. That will more than move the city authorities," Hermione asserted, deftly leaping over the familiar cracks and uneven spaces on the sidewalk leading from her home. She clipped along with a confident self-assurance that in any less skillful mammal would have looked like rank arrogance. Her carriage and demeanor showed her to be only doing what was proper for her.

"I have every confidence in you, and I do not give that lightly. I have no idea what you might find after the fire mammals have been through. Still, you have skills at searching out the tiniest clue. Use them well," Sherlock said, turning off down the road toward the office.

"Perhaps if I had your magic glass, but I will do all I can," Hermione chuckled. She opened up the clutch she had been carrying under her arm and pulled out her own magnifying glass, a cheap little job she had bought at the pawn shop and had put on a chain. She slipped it over her head and let it swing freely in front of her, occasionally highlighting her orange and cream striped retailored mustelid dress.

She continued to walk a rather scenic route to the burned-out building. Other Zootopians mocked the idea of Happytown as a scenic place. But she had seen it as her home. While it was true that a native will become inured to their own home's loveliness, it never goes away. She had always known it to her hers. Even if her family was not from it, she felt as native as any other. The peeling and faded fliers for bands, clubs and movies each had a unique charm that changed as the seasons weathered them, and they vanished slowly, a testament to time. They had their own fertility in the heart of a supposedly sterile city. Trees had taken root ages ago, been integrated into some designs. Hardy weeds shot up though the smallest crack, tufts of grass clawed the sidewalk apart with desperate green fingers. Life surged where it had the tiniest chance, reaching for a sun the Happytowners sometimes forgot, but which nature always recognized.

She casually reached down to carefully pluck the offshoot of a hairy, almost but not quite prickly, tall weed. The distinctly strange leaves with their many points looked dangerous but they were harmless, and merely covered in a light fuzz. The small flowers on most of the weed were slightly in bloom, but she had plucked off part that had the downy heads of the seeds showing. She lightly squeezed below the head and blew casually, sending the puffy mass out, disintegrating into hundreds of little specks, held aloft by the wind. She wished them well, to find the next crack or bare patch and bring forth life once more.

Sherlock had told her once that his old home was truly sterile, very little able to truly grow, especially at the higher altitudes. All life to them was precious. It all had a place and all had a right if it could be preserved. He never looked on weeds the way others did. Happytowners ignored them, Zootopians in general shrugged at them, apparently Meadowlanders had some kind of genocidal war against them. Sherlocked loved them. They were plants. They had flowers. No matter what, they were life. She had to admit, as much as she had thought of them as unpleasant before, they were life, and that was beautiful.

What wasn't beautiful was what she found at the end of her walk. The building that had been burned looked like a horrifying corpse, gutted and raw. The whole face of it was scorched, and almost a hole, like a gaping wound, was caved into the front from the firefighters and the fire. The tape was still up and the area was clear of the usual loiterers that usually clustered on the various streets of Happytown. It was an impressive change considering there were no police officers or fire officials guarding the cordoned off area.

She dug through her clutch again and pulled out her wallet with her provisional license and ID, to quickly provide her justification for being beyond the tape. She ducked under it and eyed the damage up close. The firemammals had hacked open the entrance to the narrow, tall building, some scorching around the opening showing they had done it while the fire was still raging out of control.

Her nose wiggled lightly as she sniffed over the edges of the door while she passed. The smell of char, diminished by water but still present. No accelerant, not even a tiny trace that she could tell. The fire had reached the doorway by taking advantage of the fact that many Happytown buildings, particularly the abandoned ones, often degraded through neglect and thoughtless ruin into deadly firetraps. It made a fire an excellent way to make anything look like an accident.

The interior had been gutted by the fire and most of the debris largely washed away by the water. There was a lot of cheap material. The threadbare carpet that had doubtless been in there was gone, the wood beneath showing through to the basement area where the game itself was being arranged. The crossbeams were scorched but still secure, about the only quality thing in the building, likely because collapse couldn't be ignored and so keeping the building standing was the bare minimum, and of utmost importance.

All buildings like that had extensive basements, which was why the abandoned versions were popular with purveyors of vice or other folk that needed a place to be out of sight and surrounded by sturdy walls of rock and concrete. The path to it was also made of concrete, going down into the basement via stairs. Though still slightly wet she made it down, her heels not hindering her a bit.

She reached into her clutch again to pull out a small but powerful flashlight. The space was a standard square, reeking of scorched flesh and the last lingering traces of smoke. The last traces of furnishings and decorations were scattered haphazardly by the action of water and gathering up the dead.

Her flashlight slowly swept across the scene. She wasn't studied in the ways of fire but could see where the fire started, she had to assume. Dim light filtered down from the ruined ceiling, highlighting the huge scorch mark in the middle of the floor. That area had been swept clear by the water, making her turn her attention away to light up the shattered chairs and table debris.

The sound of steps on the stairs made her ears twitch, and she turned her head to try and resolve the small patch of shadowed form that was there. "I have my Identification, I am..." Her words halted when the figure wordlessly went back up the stairs. She moved her light over to them as though trying to catch the figure once more. The sound was heavy, with sharp clicks of shoes like hers or hooves like Sherlock's. "Wait, I am..." The light from above was interrupted by a shadowed form, something with horns, or possibly antlers, a thing which moved when she looked up.

"Arrêt! Come back here!" Hermione practically flew up the stairs, clacking her way up with minimal tottering and quickly hanging a turn out the busted entrance. She practically ran face-first into a police antelope after casting her gaze down the street to one side, who held her arms once she had impacted him. "What is this? Why did you run?"

"I could ask you the same thing," the buck snorted. "This is a marked area, what are you doing here?"

Hermione struggled just enough to get an ungainly grip on her wallet, opening it and showing the provisional license and her ID. "Hermione LaBelle, I am authorized to investigate this scene. Call your precinct, I'm sure someone will get to Chief Bogo or Councilor Seedsworth eventually."

"Big names and big talk..." The officer clicked his shoulder radio. "Precinct one, this is Officer Stotterson. I have a white... weasel..."

"Hermine," Hermione corrected, with proud indignation.

"Ermine, says she's investiga-"

" _Oh! She's there? Good, the chief was hoping someone was investigating."_

"Hermione... LaBelle it says on the ID and the license. So this is a thing?" Officer Stotterson asked.

" _Fully authorized by the chief. She's working for Sherlock Gyag, he owns the detective agency they've contracted with. Why?"_

"She just ran out of the building and into me. Asking why I ran when I was just arriving."

"Someone had been coming down while I was in the basement, and looked down on me. Someone with antlers, but not... not like yours..." Hermione realized.

"I can't explain that, but then again, I came around the corner and someone could have made their way out. I heard a lot of clicking but I'm guessing those shoes made some of the noise," the officer said, clicking his radio. "False alarm. Stotterson out."

"Strange..." Hermione said, looking out over the empty street. "I think... there is more smoke to this fire than we expected."

o o o

Sherlock had to consider how different his life had become. He had always seen and accepted himself as a small fish in a small pond, swallowed up inside a large aquarium. He was a middling nobody plodding along his path, helping his home with his skill at detecting. All he ever wanted was to be a fair and righteous individual, like his master.

Suddenly, with one gift from a mammal he had merely treated with due respect, he had been thrust into strange new heights, beyond the dizzying altitude of the sacred mother. He was hobnobbing with police elite and major elected officials. His detective skills were being used as ammunition in a war between those who care and those who wanted to ignore Happytown.

One murder that would not be contained busted the rotten rind of hateful degradation wide open. The putrid flesh was exposed for all to experience, stinking up the city in a way the powerful wanted to keep at bay. Tongues were wagging and eyes were being drawn into Happytown. His home would have notice, and help. Once they could not be ignored, they would be tended.

That first case, however, would have to be put on a shelf, in a way. There were more bodies, more active attention, and much bigger folks actively interested in the resolution. Given the nature of the deaths, however, there was an undeniable connection, in Sherlock's mind. The method was too exact to be a coincidence, the whole thing designed to look like something that could be lost in Happytown. Suicide, fire danger or the brutality of a gang burning out an uncooperative vice-seller that refused to pay their fees.

A clever criminal was more dangerous than rampaging hordes of violent gangsters. Those were a known element. They were hardly subtle and often blatantly displayed their allegiances. Only the requirement for proof in a court of law stopped them from being rounded up and incarcerated. Witnesses were intimidated by them, evidence could be obfuscated by many hands and active interference. But a single clever perpetrator could be a ghost. A serial killer left no witnesses or generated none in the first place. They were methodical, purposeful and directed. The shield of chaos was good, but the pinpoint nature of focus, the difficulty of picking out one individual and gathering the evidence against them, was even better. Gangs absorbed loss by numbers, the single criminal simply avoided ever being on police radar.

The difficulty was not lost on Sherlock. His task was great, but he knew he could rely on a grimly gruesome inverse of how the gangs defended themselves. The more bodies that piled up, the more potential for mistakes existed. Each body had a set possibility for mistakes. Like flipping a coin, the odds never change from fifty-fifty, but that meant that each one could come up or fail in equal measure. The more times the unknown agent killed the more times he could make a mistake. He already had, arranging the 'suicide' improperly. The discovery in the burning building had been a fluke. No one was meant to look too closely. Sherlock had looked.

It was his home under attack, he would look and never stop looking. He had come to accept that it was a dangerous game he was playing. He had never actually considered his occupation dangerous. PI was to Happytown as police officer was to the rest of Zootopia, a thing that was necessary to public order, such as it was in the denigrated location. There was some risk but always mitigated by the tense truce that existed between various elements. Crimes could be handled, and were, even between gangs. Too many random murders would bring the attention neither side wanted. Strange as it seemed, inter-gang arbitration was a reality and PIs were the ones that mediated.

Vicemongers like Fleabite were semi-respectable citizens. Much as his own experience with excess and addiction had paled him on such folk, Sherlock had to take the pragmatic view that sometimes there was no perfect solution. His venerable master had disabused him of that notion very early, leaving him able to understand that folk will pay for what they will pay for. And if they served the community without actually parasitizing it, like the worst of the gangs did, then they were respectable, in some sense.

He had known of other floating games like his, though never as big. Mostly they paid protection money to the gangs in whose territory they operated and did what they could where and when they could. He was aware that such gambling was illegal, and could have turned them over to outside authorities. But it was Happytown, and with no good legal options or real source of anything of substance to distract from the crushing environment, it was best to just let it go and mind where they were.

If one was taken out, others might be as well, for the same reason. Protection. Not offered through the gangs but always assumed. It wasn't just that PIs like him didn't turn them in. Sellers of vice had a strange untouchability, they always seemed to have some resources, though from what he had heard in passing not even they had any idea where it came from. They operated within limits and gave cuts to figures that demanded. They assumed it was gang-related, but were never really sure about that.

Fleabite had opted to go alone, and paid for it. It sent a message, but not one loud and clear enough. One of the competing games had decided to go in on his territory knowing his workers were dead and customers eager. As he had said, Sherlock knew very little in a general sense, but much about his own home. He knew where they were setting up, and had many questions for them. Their audacity likely meant they were arrogant enough to talk freely, even to someone tainted by the greater world. His walking a line between Happytown and Zootopia proper made things more questionable, but Sherlock never shied away from a challenge.

His intentions to question the new players vanished when he smelled the acrid stink of smoke and heard clopping steps echoing around the tight back of buildings. He rushed forward to barely catch a glimpse of a shadowy figure retreating around a corner from a building with smoke just rising from the door.

He didn't think about his decision, there wasn't time for it. Even if it was likely that they had already been smothered in plastic bags and left to burn for the crime of defying a mysterious someone he knew it was right to try and rescue them.

While for the longest time he had been resistant to use a cell phone, Hermione's influence had gotten him to buy a very old, out-of-date model, largely for the games she had put on it. He fought with the device for a short space, finally getting the emergency response line. "This is Sherlock Gyag, a contract employee for the ZPD! I'm entering a burning building, 220 Basil Street, to recover possibly living mammals within!"

" _Mr. Gyag! Mr. Gyag! Please stay on the line and don't go into the building! Mr. Gyag? Are you there? Mr. Gyag?"_

The tinny voice screeched on in Sherlock's inner pocket, unheeded, as he sucked in a huge breath and plunged into the smoke, bound for the basement.


	9. Bust

I do not own Zootopia, that belongs to Disney. This a fan work made solely for the sake of amusement.

" **Let It Go, It's Happytown"**

 **Chapter Eight: Bust**

 **By: Gabriel LaVedier**

"M. Gyag! You gave me such agony for not thinking of safety and here you are now!" Hermione cried, pacing hard, stomping her sandaled paws to emphasize her indignation. "You care so much for this place, you care so much for this case! Ce n'est pas vrai! Un mensonge! You would take yourself away from it all! You would destroy your life so easily, sell your life so cheaply! Is this what you have in you? How could you?"

Sherlock was in the back of an ambulance, shirtless and showing off his rather well-toned, thickly furred body, with an oxygen mask held over his face. A few breaths later he pulled the mask down and coughed. "I cared enough to go in and see if there was anyone to save. I did what a proper, caring mammal would do if inclined to save lives. I know it seems rash but I had every reason to go in... well... my training was not perfect, I suppose. Sometimes I feel strong emotions. I had to do something. But you know what I found."

Hermione sighed and slowly nodded. "Oui. You brought two unfortunates. And skeletons, blackened and twisted in the space. The ZPD will look at those you brought."

"Plastic bags and zip ties. A horrible thread, bloody and fresh, winding through so many dead mammals, all our neighbors. No matter their occupation, they deserved better than this terror," Sherlock sighed.

"It's never easy with you, is it?" Officer Wulfberg said, walking up to the ambulance. "Throwing yourself into a burning building. You really know how to make trouble."

"Trouble for whom? The mayor? Yes, trouble for him, lots of it. I hope he cannot sleep at night, with all these lives on his head, all this blood on his ignorant hands," Sherlock said. "You see it. You saw it out there. There were others I could not recover."

"You got more than enough," Louis sighed. "The charred bodies were suggestive but easy enough to dismiss. This is open. New bodies to cut into, to examine the brand of plastic and zip ties, actual proof. This boat can't rock any more without just capsizing it."

"Exactly what is necessary," Sherlock said firmly.

"Chaos, destruction and upheaval?" Louis asked.

"Change," Sherlock stressed. "Change is often misunderstood. We do not like being moved from our normal lives but unless we change and grow we will stagnate, rot and crumble. Rot. And crumble. Stagnate. I'm sure you know what that looks like..."

"You can't blame all this on everyone else, you folks have some responsibility too!" Louis shouted.

"We do," Sherlock concurred, in a low tone. "The gangs have made the decay worse, indifference, complacency, acceptance of lowliness. All stagnation. Accelerated rot. We are dying, Officer Wulfberg. A walking corpse that was not broken and fed to the tower of silence, as is proper. We need this dynamic change. We need it."

"I don't know what that last part means but... I understand..." Louis sighed and shook his head. "I have my mother's name and my father's respectability. I'm passing, as a predator. Her wealth and status insulated me as much a my father's head-butting caprinity and hard work. But I still learned what it was like being a predator, what prey say behind your back, what they do when you're not looking. Only the ZPD really fit. I wish everyone had that."

"C. Wulfberg, I was upset too, but... he is correct. As strange as it is, he did right," Hermione said. "These bodies will bring more notice. They are an immediate thing."

"That's what worries me,"Louis mused. "This whole thing now looks properly connected. It started with a crime that was supposed to be swept away. Killing and arson followed, to look like the dangers of old, abandoned buildings were the cause. They must have planned this before realizing someone was on to them. Now they know, and their careful plan to do... something is falling apart. If there were other steps, they can't do them. If they had an agenda, it's ruined. No one would bet on what happened. And your name has come up. You'll either be avoided..."

"Or targeted," Sherlock finished. "I am aware. If I _go away_ in some capacity, the problem might go with me. But then again, it might make everything mean more, everyone left behind clamoring for answers. So they might ruin me. Kill an innocent and throw them in my cot, invent finances I never had in an account I have never seen, or put drugs I have never used on my body, when I used to prefer drink, when I was at my lowest."

"And it will be me they kill," Hermione sighed. "I accept this. I knew this place would kill me one day. It will kill us all. At least it will not be toxic mold or poison water or a desperate creature needing money. It will be mercifully fast."

"Wow. Wow, and I thought Scarlet had a fatalist look at the world. But she only looks at love like that. She'd never talk about dying like that," Louis said with a small whistle at the end.

"What is this Scarlet of yours?" Hermione asked. "I can guess she is no wolf, or goat."

"A red fox. She's... not quite an immigrant. Her grandparents came from some old country, but they had some money. She's still a red fox, but she has this... really bright attitude that makes her keep going," Louis sighed, happily.

"You are fortunate, C. Wulfberg. Seeing love with real eyes is a rare thing," Hermione said. "But that is beyond the point. Alright, M. Gyag. You did well saving those bodies. But you must be careful. You must be alive to solve crimes."

"Someone will come after me, there will always be eyes to see and hooves to dig for the truth like a yam," Sherlock casually said, stepping out of the ambulance.

"Cases go cold all the time, don't trust that eyes will be there to replace you. And some have very special skills," Louis noted.

"Perhaps..." Sherlock said, shrugging on his slightly singed coat. "We should not rely on mammals like that, but talent has not seen fit to be spread across the whole of the world. So, I will take your advice and endeavor to survive to perform my job and solve this case."

"I never knew living was so onerous, monsieur," Hermione said with a roll of her eyes.

"This life is an illusion, but while we exist here we take it as we find it, and this is a place of suffering, all the fault of misplaced and overly emphasized desire. Desire makes mammals do unfortunate things. Desperate things, fueled by desire. But... if nothing else, this is my home and I will protect it," Sherlock said, resolutely.

"We need to do better on that front," Hermione sighed. "Too many neighbors are being sacrificed to some horrible purpose. What gluttonous maw needs so many bodies to sustain itself?"

"I have heard of corrupt places in other nations that sustained power by making others vanish or laying out the dead as a warning to others. No death, but our own terrible conspiracy laid out supposedly natural horrors that had the city go into a panic. Sacrificing those not seen as important works. Curse the very stones they walk on, but it works," Sherlock grunted.

"Naturally, we'll keep you informed," Louis said. "Technically, you're the lead on this... meta-case, the criminology types are calling it. You're on for the Charlie case, and I hear you registered as the investigator of record on the first fire. Since they're all likely connected it only makes sense to tell you what we find, as long as you share with us."

"If I find anything, which to now has been... death and misery," Sherlock sighed. "Only dead bodies, destruction and ruination for my home. I hope it amounts to something."

"As dark as it is, dead bodies are good for us. They tell us a lot. The lab is going to have a lot of useful things ready," Louis said. "I hate it, but it's the reality of this kind of thing."

"The dead can speak. My venerable master taught me from the lips of those long dead. And in this land the brilliant still bring words from the mouths of the fallen. Maybe these sacrifices will tell us whose maw they fed," Sherlock said.

"Back to work, Monsieur," Hermione said. "Mad as I am about your recklessness, I understand now. And there is no stopping."

"March on to the truth," Sherlock said.

o o o

"I have seldom seen you using that infernal machine, monsieur," Hermione was behind her desk, filing her claws while she listened to Sherlock clicking away at the computer.

"Increasingly, I see the use of this device in this modern world," Sherlock said, clicking on links and taking physical notes when he discovered something new.

"And you still take paper notes," Hermione said with a small laugh. "You are a true contradiction in terms. Or perhaps merely a deeply complex mammal. You stand in another world and this one, the past and present. I am so glad I came to work for you, M. Gyag. Seeing this spices up this bleak vale."

"There exists no contradiction. We all live our lives in a swirl of the past and present, taking lessons from before and using them to inform our lives as we move forward," Sherlock commented. "These folk around us, our neighbors... they have strange notions about what life is like and how the world works. For those who live here. There are many who are clearly not from here but pretend they are also our kind, sometimes to make themselves look knowledgeable, sometimes to spread rumors and innuendo. If I was incapable of separating them it would make sifting for good information all but impossible. What a curious things for mammals to do."

"Oh Monsieur..." Hermione said with a slow shake of her head and a smile on her face. "We live in a world of liars and of the suspicious. We are all low here, all equally abused. But some think we are specially hated. Indeed we are, and predators have been the targets of a conspiracy. But in their minds... it is more. More than Bellwethers, more than the disdain of the culture. That there are dark forces in this world, that target them, stalk them, eliminate them. They may be right..."

"Not to the degree they presume..." Sherlock muttered. "And the liars?"

"Mammals have strange needs when their bellies are filled and their home is safe and clean. They need to feel they have power. Power over others, to cause chaos. They lie to lie. I have heard tell of these. They may do it for their own amusement, or to forward their conspiracies, or more cruelly, to make others afraid, uncertain or even angry enough to act. I do hope, M. Gyag, you really do know them from others. For all your vast mental powers if you were moved by those who pretended to their position..." Hermione shivered and sighed. "I fear what you might do."

"I act only when moved, and I am moved when I feel the universe speak. Something inside sets my mind to working. I know caution and calm sense is the only way to live properly," Sherlock said, clicking through more of the pages of commentary. "The real ones, these poor folk so afraid for their lives... I would prefer to be able to call them wrong. They are not wrong. Their scope and scale is wildly incorrect. No need to think the world will come for them, some evil force nearby is threat enough."

"All of these things, connected. A unified whole, something dark and sinister. I thought I understood what that meant. I was wrong..." Hermione said.

"We seldom know the true scope of anything, we only confront it piece by piece as it is revealed," Sherlock noted.

" _Tell me, my young disciple, how far does your mind go?" Master Bajja asked. He was unseen, speaking from out of a deep, pervasive darkness that swallowed up some huge chamber._

 _Shalva held a small candle, his eyes closed, his mind focused on ignoring all things but his master's voice, even the heat of the wax rolling down and over the thickened hoof tips of his fingers. "As far as it can go, master," he answered, doing his best to sit still in that little pool of light that scarcely illuminated his face._

" _Truly? Well now, tell me where I am, young disciple," Master Bajja firmly demanded._

" _You are here, with me in the chamber, master. I hear you, I know you are here to guide me," Shalva answered._

" _I will guide you, my disciple, teach you why you are wrong," Master Bajja said. "I asked you where I was. Tell me. Where am I? Exactly where am I, young disciple?"_

 _Shalva's ears flicked, slightly, in the darkness, just shown twitching in the aura of the candle. "I know you are there, master, behind me, to the right, five paces."_

" _You know this, my disciple? In all exactness, with your eyes closed and only a single light in your hooves? Tell me how it is you know this so finely."_

 _A long silence followed, only the soft whisper of breath and the tiny fizz of the burning candle wick filling the space. "I... I do not know. I feel, I can gather..."_

" _Good, good. Your mind is wide and knows to connect the threads. But you can do more, so much more, by knowing more and using that. But your mind only reaches as far as it can. I have taken your eyes, but you may use them. Your eyes, your hooves, your snout, all of it. You have reached the limits of what your mind may do alone. Open your eyes, my disciple."_

 _Shalva slowly opened his eyes, blinking slowly as his eyes adjusted to the glow of the small candle. "I... I do not see you, master. I cannot move, unless you tell me. What may I do to reach what you wish me to?"_

 _The scrape of flint rasped loud and long in the dark and silent chamber, soon creating a second orb of light, illuminating the billowy form of Master Bajja. "You still do not see me, do you?"_

" _No master, only your new light."_

" _And that is the lesson my young disciple, one that others will never comprehend. Those down the mountain think we deal in magic here, in some strange mystery of awesome powers and terrible mysteries. You will leave here with fewer mysteries, fewer illusions. Learn this lesson well. For all that this world is ephemeral we may still see those things that are and with better clarity the more we understand we do not go as far as we can go unless we strive to expand past what we think is the limit we have. With your eyes closed you had only what you could hear or smell. With them open you saw little enough. But the little candle of my life made a trace you can see ever that much more. Even when you cannot rely on all the things available, you take every last thing that exists to reach a final conclusion. This is your goal."_

" _As you say, master. I will learn all, and become a great-" Shalva's comment was stopped when the sound of a wood-handled paper fan slapped against his head._

" _Traces will never tell you anything more than you can gather. Focus."_

"We see only as far as our open senses can allow. We gather tiny traces, to know as much as we can as best we can," Sherlock said, pushing away from his desk and sighing. "We need more clues."

"I will get my magic wand from home and conjure them for you, monsieur," Hermione said with a grin. "I know we need more, but we must wait for them or go seek them. Do we go out once more to find shadows and death?"

"I walk enough to think, and prefer to have a site to check. The ZPD and ZFD are examining the current sites. We need to wait for updates. Wait... I know that there is good in care and waiting, quiet meditation, but I know you prefer action, Mlle. LaBelle. Perhaps you would like to test your skill on those sites," Sherlock suggested.

"You joke, oui, monsieur?" Hermione asked.

"Why would I joke? This is your future, and your prior outing proved you can find very interesting things. This mysterious figure the officer did not see. Curious..." Sherlock mused, interrupted from his thinking by his phone ringing. "Sherlock Gyag Investigations."

" _Sherlock... I don't know if this is exactly proper, but I doubt the chief will care. We had an incident they actually called the police on here in Happytown. We're trying to keep it quiet but this will get out sooner or later. You're a native and this will impact you, and the investigations, for reasons that you'll understand."_

"Officer Wulfberg? What are you..."

" _Grab that stoat that works for you and come down to the Four Aces card club. It's inside the demarcation of Happytown... barely, but it is. It's new, it was supposed to be something... and now we've got a dead body."_

"Plastic, suffocation and fire?" Sherlock asked.

" _No. But it's gambling, under attack. And the gangs were involved. We have one dead gang member, but none of this feels right. Usually we'd be busting heads and rounding up the usual. But the chief wasn't about to believe the appearance. He wanted me to call you to look it over. Second guessing isn't his style. If he needs more eyes, you get those eyes."_

"We shall be right there," Sherlock said, hanging up and standing from his desk, popping his hat onto his head. "Mysteries abound, Mlle. LaBelle. We're bound to another killing, at a place of gambling. The appearance was meant to be simple and straightforward, and now they need new eyes to tell them who they are being deceived."

"Once I mistrusted these outsiders, now I must pity their blindness to our home," Hermione said, shaking her head and she got up from behind her desk. "C. Wulfberg must be desperate to ask us for help, he seems reluctant until we give him more than he ever could have found."

"He has lived a life passing as the wrong parent, in the eyes of the city. Money and power preserved him, but he has been suspicious and hard. He is only trying his best," Sherlock said, holding the door open for Hermione, who graciously nodded as she passed.

The walk was long, but silent. Sherlock walking with his long strides and Hermione making certain she kept pace with her quick, clicking walk, occasionally dropping to all fours to run like primitive weasels were said to. In their own ways both were contemplating the limited information both had, considering what it all might mean.

For Hermione, she knew only it was death they suspected to be something other than what it seemed. They had been shown they were being fooled, being played as dupes. It had stung them, and that amused her. The outside city folk always seemed so smug, so self-assured. Even the predators, even immigrants with money walked around with their snouts in the air. But they could be fooled too. They could be made to look ignorant and easily led. They weren't so perfect. They had their own faults and they were forced to feel the shame of knowing it.

Sherlock had to consider how he was being involved in this. Tangentially related at best. Yet, Officer Wulfberg needed his advice to see if they were being tricked again. He was an expert, and was being consulted about this world that was Happytown. The officer had been stung by his lack of understanding. He recognized that things were different there, that he was lost. A learning experience. He had said that the chief had wanted more insight from someone in the know. The learning was growing. Seeing understanding of humility and willingness to learn spread into the wider city was quite a wonderful thing.

When they arrived at the indicated location they found a small crowd being pushed back by big rhino ZPD officers, with Officer Wulfberg standing behind them, beside a sheet-covered lump on the ground in front of the indicated business. It looked like one of the old Happytown buildings given a good coat of paint, new glass and bright new signs trying to make it look like just an ordinary business in the city proper. Under the awning were other ZPD officers, who were asking questions of a small group of goats wearing security guard uniforms.

"This is a mess, a mess that's going to make everything harder, because it gives the mayor an answer that will make him too smug for my liking," Louis said as Sherlock and Hermione approached him. "I need some way to call this something other than what it seems like."

"Well, just tell me what happened here," Sherlock said, pulling out his magnifying glass and examining the street at the edge of the cloth cover.

"This place is some attempt to get legitimate gaming in here. Completely independent, licensed and legal, about the same as the casinos in Sahara Square, on a small scale to test the waters. Earlier today a group of folks came in and started busting the place up. They ran as soon as the security forces actually got on them, but... they had no coordination and communication. These cheap goons all darted the same thug, and too many times. Looks like he had prepared for close-quarter tasers, like professionals might use, but he didn't count on idiots with the wrong dose and too much of it," Louis grumbled, casting sharp looks at the security team.

"I do not know the finer points of such action, but would there have been any larger difference with a more refined technique in the heat of such a moment?" Hermione asked.

"Professionals have better training, for matters that are more than just someone getting rowdy. They were too slow, too disorganized, and didn't remember you don't dart wildly in the streets and especially without coordinating shots to tag a selected target. I'll say this... Councilor Seedsworth's wife would never have let this happen. There's a reason Lionheart hired her brother's company. You get the best when you're that desperate," Louis said, pulling the sheet back to reveal the victim.

The one sprawled out on the ground was a fairly nondescript wolf. His coat was light gray, scruffy and mussed up, with markings that indicated his gang allegiance. He was wearing a white undershirt with thick padding on the front and back, and along the sides, likely thick carbon padding to stop electricity. He wore low-slung jeans that were baggy, distressed and heavily faded. Multiple tranq darts stuck out of his back, peppering the area. The specific silver shine and color of the feathering denoted a particularly strong formula.

"I do not even need the glass. This is a fake. And if you ever happen to find who he is, a task akin to climbing the sacred mother, you will find he has no connection to this place or to any gang," Sherlock plainly asserted.

Louis visibly relaxed, his face keeping its hard edge all the same. "I'm sure I could take that to the chief and he'd try his best to be okay with it, but he wants results, he wants a reason to think that's a fact. Just give me the particulars and the chief will be satisfied."

Sherlock pointed to various features as he mentioned them, occasionally using his glass to more finely highlight his point. "The pants are suitably ruined. I have seen these sorts, occasionally seen sold in the second-paw shops. It is not the type originally sold for this but a pricey type given away after damage. But they were always actually aged and had stitch marks to show they were repaired. These are faded evenly, done with intent, and the fraying shows slight follow-through as with scissors or a knife. I cannot be sure but you might find that sandpaper was involved. Most importantly, look at the lower hems, fraying would happen where a normal mammal walked. That might be the first reason to give it away, not something done as a cosmetic choice. But sandpaper looks to have been used there too, showing more all-over damage.

"These marks look fine from a distance, but they are not dye-cuts. Just dye; a proper dye-cut is deeper, richer, especially in one of this age. Fading takes time and would be on a much older mammal. It is also very sharp. That is not proof but most gang-cuts are at least a little unsteady, slightly skewed. A professional could have done it, but the design is highly detailed. Most of the time they get only the basic shape. Even for hard mammals there is pain involved that they must endure.

"This fur mussing does not smell right. You can smell the petroleum jelly, I trust. Some will use some form of this if they have the money or inclination but most do not need it. They smell of their natural oils, with the fur pushed down in regular patterns from being swept up in a kind of tic the gang members develop to look casual and unconcerned. This is not quite random, but artfully done to make the mussing look like it was part of a gang look. They tried, very hard, to look from a distance like a gang member," Sherlock concluded.

Louis leaned in and sniffed the body deeply, lips slightly curled up. A few huffs of breath later he grunted. "Plain petroleum jelly, and a bodily scent that was just someone sitting around for a few days. So what do we say about this? Why try to throw blame on the gangs and why do this kind of attack on this particular business?"

"We have to think of it with all the other happenings in mind. Fleabite wanted to be independent, paying nothing to the gangs who, themselves, always seem to pay money to others that give them some advantages. Those that tried to replace him wanted to be free as well. This business was from the outside, and was going to be openly independent. Some force does not want that. Independent folk give hope and lift folk up. They attacked this place looking like gang members, to bring the standard response, arrest of gang members, more terror for Happytown, more uncertainty. They would claim to know nothing, of course. As for anyone caught, which would be the effect of a professional security team, they would make bail, as this is a crime that would earn it. Bail paid by a nebulous organization. And then, vanish. No record would be found of them. Fake address, no prints, no one knowing they ever existed, explained as being the gang hiding one of their own. As you say, you get the best when you are desperate, or when you have the funds."

"Not that long ago I would have called you crazy. We have too many dead bodies to think you're off your gourd," Louis said with a shake of his head, replacing the sheet over the body. "Best case scenario, we have someone trying to frame the gangs for something, that stirs up trouble, makes mammals afraid, desperate to punish Happytown. It's Bellwether all over again, hurting immigrant prey too. Just what was all of this supposed to do in the end?"

"That is a mistake we so often make," Sherlock said gravely. "Nothing ever actually ends. Life may be a grand illusion, but it persists before our eyes however we may deny it. There need be no end, merely maintaining the stagnation. Letting us rot, for some benefit that I may only guess at. I cannot even know if this is desperation or the plan put together to try and salvage some intended path. It was meant to be simple. End Charlie, end independent operators through apparent accidents, make the city fear the gangs who attacked a company owned by the someone from the city proper. This is strange. Very strange. We fouled some plan. But blood is still spilled. I only fear what this strange force may demand to have their will be done..."


	10. Red Dahlia

I do not own Zootopia, that belongs to Disney. This a fan work made solely for the sake of amusement.

" **Let It Go, It's Happytown"**

 **Chapter Nine: Red Dahlia**

 **By: Gabriel LaVedier**

"Who would we question now?" Hermione asked, sitting behind her desk and looking thoughtful. "So few might know anything. But those who know may fear their own necks are on the line for this. Our mysterious villain has succeeded in some way."

"Shutting their mouths is in no way victory. It is quite simply, weakness," Sherlock answered. "Holding a muzzle closed will take time, effort, even if only using menace and threats. They must add more fear, widening the circle of those that could stand against them, those that might not fear them. The more they wait, the more they hold their greatness over them the weaker and weaker they grow. They are in quite a dangerous position, and will need to do something perhaps extreme to restore their stable power."

"More? How could there be more, M. Gyag? They have killed and burned. What more is there?" Hermione queried.

"I do not have that answer. I have limits to the candle of my mind. But somewhere beyond, in the darkness, other minds wait, and they have the ability to think of such things we may not," Sherlock replied, his office awash in his favorite incense. "I, too, tremble to contemplate what foulness they may inflict on our neighbors."

The two went silent again, Sherlock occasionally looking to his computer, Hermione filing her claws and blowing them clear. After a few claws worth of polishing she stood up suddenly and shouted. "I cannot abide this! We need action. I know you are seeking answers on your machine but surely there are questions to ask and those who may answer them!"

"Your passion, in the estimation of some in my own experience, shows an attachment to a world of pain, an excess. But in this world there is a place for this kind of passionate response. You may have more fortune in one area in which I failed," Sherlock said. "I attempted to make inquiries with the working ladies of the town, but had little fortune. I have no evidence they lied, but they may have been reluctant. They opened conversation regarding me as a _broke PI_ in their words. Perhaps a persuasive jill would make them more talkative."

"Mm, perhaps. They have little enough reason to speak with me, but it is better than to file my claws and await the horrors to come," Hermione mused.

"You are my understudy, as you say. You need the experience and the drive. I wish you well in this endeavor. At least some small scrap of information would be more than we have now," Sherlock said with a nod, standing in the frame of the door to his office.

"Are they still in the spot I know them to be?" Hermione asked.

"As regular as clockwork. They know where to gather their paramours, and those in turn know where to find them," Sherlock said. "Do not get discouraged if they fail to respond."

"They will know one of theirs. We do not have the same occupation but we are equally wretched and they will share with me, I am sure," Hermione stated. She stood up from her chair and picked up a pocket recorder, placing it in her simple clutch, which she tucked under an arm.

"Even with limited means as we have you still prefer some second-hoof technology to a simple black notebook and pencil," Sherlock noted with some amusement.

"Mais oui, Monsieur. Accuracy is important. I know it is a silly extravagance but it is my preference. I wish to have it, and it will only augment my little gray cells, where the real work comes," Hermione said with a sniff. "The technology is only an assistant."

"A mature position," Sherlock said with a nod. "So long as you recognize the limits of mere machines and understand the true power lies in your capabilities."

Hermione craned her neck to look into the office and see the old computer humming away. "Oui, how little machines may do for us, Monsieur."

"In their sphere, in their time," Sherlock said with a grin playing on his lips.

Hermione left the office, clicking her way rapidly along the streets, clutch held tight to her and her snout held high. She hardly looked like she belonged there, with her deeply held pride and self-assurance. She was not a native, yet she was. But even so, the place hardly seemed to touch her. For all her talk about being a suffering wretch, she only saw and spoke the darkness, she did not let it rule her. Her hope was wan but, as she had said to Sherlock, it lived privately within.

On her smallish weasel legs, even with her quick clip, it still took Hermione some time to reach the distant place where all the cheaply dressed, provocatively posed women stood. She was met with a sea of scowls, all of the paid companions disdainfully regarding her tasteful second-paw attire and strappy heels. "Oh no! No! You get your overpriced haunches out of here you! We don't need you high-priced fancy-junk escorts comin' 'round here to mess up what we got! It's all we can do and you jills from outside can't take what we made here!" A reddish bobcat hissed, pupils narrowed, fingers reflexively flexing and exposing her claws.

Hermione smartly clicked open her clutch, activating the recorder and whipping out her wallet, showing off her provisional license. "Hold your ire, madames, I have no need for this space. I am Hermione LaBelle, understudy to the investigator Sherlock Gyag. I have come to ask questions of you. You, princesses de la rue, know all that comes and see all that happen on your streets."

"Take a hike, we didn't talk to the haystack and we're not talking to you," the cinnamon bobcat spat, glaring hotly at Hermione.

"Non! I will remain! This matters! This is important and I will not be chased away by the likes of you," Hermione yelled back, standing determined before the slightly larger predator.

"Oh likes of me? Think you're better than me because you got a job that don't need you on your back all the time? Maybe you are. Gotta keep that boss happy on your- Oof!" The laughing cat was suddenly silenced by Hermione throwing a punch into her gut, her self-defense training serving to make the tiny punch into something of notice.

"Let us be calm, proper, _**respectful**_ ," Hermione said, looking cool and proper, but putting heavy emphasis on the last word. "Hate me. Berate me. Me. Moi. I am here to ask of you." The other women approached slowly, all of them looking upset. "We are not the same in work. But we are all the same. All of us. We are all wretches here, all equal in the misery of this place. There is much. Misery. And death. We are seeking answers for the murders, the fires. We need answers. Please give us something. Anything."

The cinnamon bobcat coughed softly, standing up straight and smiling a bit. "Went for the hit, hit first, hit fast, didn't go for the face to keep the makeup good and the face sellable. You know your stuff, jill."

"I have need and needed calm. And my boss need not be involved if he is not here," Hermione said, casually brushing off her dress. "I know there is no reason to speak, but if you have heard and seen then please say so."

"There's not much to say..." the bobcat started.

"Spare us, Red. You know there's always something to say," a long, leggy wolf in a halter and miniskirt said. "I didn't think much of him either but I've had time to think about it. He's like Charlie, he wanted to help. We ought to help too."

"Roxy, there's literally nothing to say. You lay out on your back, demand they use rubbers and get that money. A few bucks is better than nothing," Red hissed.

"There's a lot to say. The Johns aren't always just losers from the city trying to get something they can't get back there," a zebra said.

"They don't get violent, not usually. We make sure it's a mistake they only start making once," a coyote smoking a clove cigarette said with a phlegmy laugh. "But, that's for regular folks. Charlie was more about giving bucks for food or cigs, and Red used a little for... medicinal purposes. But Charlie just gave, he never took anything, and that's why we should say everything we know. A smart jill like this could actually do something with our stories."

"If only that's how the whole thing worked. Money for nothing. Not even a little dance in a bathing suit or naked jump rope," Roxy laughed. "Had that a few times. I guess I don't mind that, it's easy work."

"I have one guy that wants to rub olive oil over my rear then have me twerk and flex for an hour. That's it. Just oil, my hind end and flexing. It's a workout but beats minimum wage," the zebra noted with a fleeting smile.

"There's a lot of variation. Not everyone is Charlie, but they're not all Mr. Limo..." the coyote said, immediately cutting herself off as she said it.

"Qu'est-ce que c'est? M. Limo? Who is that?" Hermione asked, reaching into her clutch to bring out her recorder for heightened clarity while getting out her little black notebook and pencil. "This seems notable..."

"Way to go, Clover. Why not just tell everyone?" Red huffed. "That's our business. We deal with it, we keep it to ourselves."

"We don't deal with it, that's the problem," Clover yapped. "We take care of Johns who get a little too hard. We take care of our own, without pimps or managers. But we don't take care of Mr. Limo, and it needs to get taken care of."

"Yes... tell me of this M. Limo. How has he this power over you that he may not be touched?" Hermione asked.

"We took care of the pimps and the ones that thought they controlled us. We don't answer to some punk in a flashy suit anymore. We used Mayor Wulfberg's clean-up squad to get them out. That was the legacy the old gals gave us," Roxy said with an almost reverential tone. "We could keep our money, and the gangs knew that if they wanted peace, we'd pay our tribute but they never messed with us. We could find them at their most vulnerable, and we didn't have any mercy. But the gangs had a problem, and that became our problem."

"We just call him Mr. Limo," Red said. "He never says how, no one really knows anything, but keeping him happy makes cops and problems go away. You ask the vicemongers and some of the dumber gangsters, they don't know how they do what they do. Ask the wrong dealer and you might end up on the wrong end of some claws. Not all the dealers work inside Happytown, for Happytown. They all pay something to someone. Mr. Limo picks up everything. We don't have pimps, but we have... requirements. He picks up a lady, and they go... somewhere. Nobody has ever seen. It's all blindfolds and Fifty Grades of Prey, for real."

"Exigences..." Hermione muttered, dutifully jotting down everything she could. "This system, you must have some notion of how it works. You are not stupid. You have to be very wise to survive in so precarious a position. Please, you must have some kind of idea about this."

"Well there's something..." Clover started.

"No! That's more than enough!" Red hissed, looking down on Hermione. "Look, weasel, we know you're trying to do good, you and the haystack. Yes, you're like Charlie. Charlie's dead. Those fools that tried to do something for themselves are dead. Know who's not dead? Mr. Limo. That's how it works. You wanna be dead, weasel?"

"I want to live in a world without fear!" Hermione snapped.

"Where do you think you are? This is Happytown. You think you can live without fear?" Red countered.

"It must be possible. Other places do. It must **be** possible. And all of you know it," Hermione replied, sweeping a digit across the assembly of women.

Though her snout skin curled a bit Red responded with a quiet voice. "Folks that do good stuff, they shouldn't die. If we're gonna live in a trash can it's better if someone throws away a bouquet of flowers now and then."

"Oui. Or perhaps, something could change. We all must think as we do," Hermione said, putting away her notebook and pulling out a small cloth case. She wasn't prominent enough to have her own cards, but she had surreptitiously taken some of Sherlock's and he hardly seemed to notice. She passed off a few cards to the women, including to Red. "If anything comes into your mind... anything. Our little gray cells will stand ready to turn all things into new knowledge, tease out meaning. We will find the answer, and we will do better."

Red looked down at the card and absently stuffed it into her outfit with a huff. "If. If..."

Hermione slowly nodded, walking away with many backward glances, to see the women close ranks and softly chatter amongst themselves, a few actually giving her a look. A code of silence was upon them. Secrets lasted longer the fewer there were to hold them. Their group kept some detail, some small bit of information. It was not for pride or ego, no game of holding a secret from authorities to appear clever. They clearly thought of it as a matter of survival. Keeping the secret might mean safety from the source. If they told no one they were assured protection.

No one offering protection for silence in such a way was ever any good. It was a transaction with an interest rate paid in paranoia. The keeper would wonder every day if any action had been misinterpreted, and the guardian would misinterpret every action. The more deadly the secret, the more needful silence was. Still lips were silent forever. In a grim and horrifying way, logic would lead to only one certainty. The keeper would need to be removed forever the longer it remained dangerous.

Hermione felt terrible for not pressing. But a solid defense grew stronger when hit by an outsider, not weaker. She couldn't erode such a confidence. Sherlock could, perhaps. His strange and mysterious ways had powers. She knew he had powers. His own denial was irrelevant. He had broken some down. She would try to move him to make the effort, to try and wear down their stony silence like time wore down the buildings into sagging gray skeletons.

Rounding a corner she went out of sight of them, and was gone.

o o o

"I still think you're an idiot." Much later in the day, when the working streetlights popped on and bathed the slum in harsh downward glares, the time had come for the women of the night to prowl. Diurnal, nocturnal, crepuscular. It didn't matter what their DNA said of them. They were all night beasts, in their gaudy attire and heavy makeup. Roxy was the one that had spoken, the wolf not looking at the bobcat to which she was speaking.

"Spare me, Roxy," Red rumbled, eyes on the road. "We really couldn't have said anything. We really don't know anything. I don't care what that white weasel says, no amount of brainpower could turn our spoor into clues."

"You're too dumb to know how dumb you are," Clover quickly stated. "I worked the university once. One of the dudes liked to talk while I danced in a skirt. The dumber you are the more you can't tell how dumb you are. Told me I at least had the brains to know there was stuff I couldn't get. I can believe the haystack can think of junk to do with what we tell him."

Red waved a hand in the general direction of the two canids before squinting and letting out a sharp whistle. "Headlights. Display the goods, ladies. Someone's getting rent money tonight."

The pack of women rushed up and showed off what they thought might appeal to the potential customer. Most showed off a lot of leg, with a few openly displaying their paws. The zebra practically turned away to show off the swelling enormity of her striped flanks. Clover took a drag off of her everpresent clove cigarette, letting her plump lips shining with red lipstick moosh suggestively around the end of it and be illuminated by the temporarily brightened ember of the tip.

It wasn't an ordinary car that cut through the inconsistent light. The circles of light caressed along the long and sleek contours of a dark, well-polished limousine. A little shudder ran through the women, each one looking between their fellows. They held a lone, fleeting hope that maybe, maybe, it was some lost tourist, or some overly generous rich person coming to whisk one of them away to a life of pleasure and luxury. It had happened before.

The limo slowly pulled to a stop by the women clustered in a circle of light, those at the fringes slowly stepping out into the relative dark, to leave themselves out of the potential selection. One tinted window very slowly rolled down with a soft electric whine. A hoof in gloves emerged, pointing directly at Red, who mimed at herself in shock. The hoof pointed again, almost violently, the door locks disengaging and the door opening a crack.

"It's how it is, it's Happytown," Red said in what she hoped was a casual way. She sauntered her way to the door and pulled it open, staring into the inky blackness of the interior before the gloved hoof callously grabbed one arm and yanked her in with a vehement energy.

The door slammed shut and the limo took off, tires almost squealing and echoing down the rows of buildings. The other girls were shaken by the encounter, shuddering and panting, released from the spell of dread. Clover took a shaky drag from her cigarette and let out a trembling puff. "I want that white weasel's world. I need it so bad right now..."

Hours passed in slow ticks, the ladies finding partners or drifting off to spend the dregs of a hungry night getting what sleep they could muster. No one saw the long limo return, an ominous mechanical shadow, an artificial beast of menace. The rear door opened again and Red was literally shoved out onto the street, rolling slightly as she gave pained and indignant coughs.

The time away had left her much worse for wear. Everything on her was torn in some fashion, ripped or seemingly bitten at. Slight swelling in places were either punches or especially hard grabs. Her face had not been spared like Hermione had done. One cheek puffed slightly more than the other and one eye was only partially open. She tottered on her paws, from being thrown out of the limo and from whatever she had had to endure.

The street wasn't hers but she knew them all anyhow and sullenly made her way back to the Night Beast Gallery. Her home was a somber trot from their place, as was most everyone else's. It had worked out that way. The apartment managers knew they'd get their money sometimes, and were sometimes too eager to negotiate if things weren't so good. She accepted it. Being real was more important than living in a fantasy world.

A hoped-for world, she suddenly thought. Hope. It was easy for that bleached weasel to think about hope. She had a real job, with a boss she liked enough to throw a punch over. As pathetic as the broke haystack was, he sure as moonshine cared about everything. Just like Charlie. Charlie... He had hope too. Too much. He tried to get her off the stuff, tried to get them out of the dumpster. He got important folks to glance down a little bit. But someone more important noticed and they didn't like it.

She didn't know anything. She had no big, important secrets. But she lived in the real world. She lived through things happening around and to her. The things built on top of each other like an ant mound. Her little crumb of knowledge might have been from the middle, but it was all a part of the big pile. She knew that there was anger about things getting too active. And she had been randomly selected to serve as punishment for everyone. Her bruises belonged to the whole of Happytown. That metal taste across her tongue was a lesson to the whole place, that she had to understand.

Charlie crossed her mind again. Him and his quest to get her off the stuff. The profitable stuff. No one messes with money. Money flows from place to place, and has very burly, very angry bodyguards making sure it can keep moving. At first she thought she had been the last flea, that her little crush of 'nip weighed down Charlie, made him do himself in. But knowing he hadn't was worse. Getting one junkie hooker clean in a market like Happytown wasn't allowed. Charlie paid for his care. What was worse was nothing could stop it. The ugliness of the act itself made her need an escape from it.

She needed to forget. She had been taught a lesson that wasn't hers alone and it was something else to get rid of. She had to make it all go away. She checked her torn clothes for something that wasn't there, finding only the card the PI's moll had given her.

"Charlie... I'm sorry but... maybe I will go to that eclipsed PI. I don't know scat but I don't know what I know. Maybe..." She held her head and shook it sharply. "Ugh, I need 'nip..." She muttered, just loud enough to be heard outside the sphere of her own hearing.

A shadow had kept her company since she had been dumped from the limo. A wisp of darkness had been with her, keeping tabs on her paws, keeping ears out for anything and everything she said. A shadow that slunk along dark edges and peeked out of alleys into which it had secreted itself. On hearing that need the dark figure moved to her, looming and mysterious. "Need 'nip, girly? Got some nip right here. Come into my office, let's make a deal..."

 **Author's Notes**

 **Pocket Recorder-** The tiniest nod to the proper universe Hermione's love of technological gewgaws.

 **Little Gray Cells-** A reference to Hercule Poirot, the Belgian detective creation of Agatha Christie. A French stoat like Hermione would love to drop a reference like that.

 **The Zebra Mare-** Nick, my friend, I love you and your ways. My friend, you are a truly good man.

 **The Taken-Away-** Not a _Pretty Woman_ reference, actually. It's about Duke. Mostly.


	11. Gentleman Jack

I do not own Zootopia, that belongs to Disney. This a fan work made solely for the sake of amusement.

" **Let It Go, It's Happytown"**

 **Chapter Ten: Gentleman Jack**

 **By: Gabriel LaVedier**

Happytown was an unfriendly place, had been for decades. Normal Zootopians avoided it unless they needed some service from it, or had more toughness than brains. Recent happenings had had overtures directed at the average Zootopian. Short commercials, online ads, radio spots. Some little business or another being touted as new and exciting, a cheaper alternative to Sahara Square or some other big thing. An exotic, wholly alien vacation location, just a quick tram ride away. Like most cheap offers for a bad product, volume was key, in numbers and decibels. It was like insect reproduction, numbers kept the species alive.

For every scam there was a sucker, and advertising was the law's preferred method of swindling the rubes. That was how a nebbishy-looking beige-wooled ram found himself walking through the streets deep in Happytown with a phone in his hand and the GPS on the screen. Even within his own city he had on his hapless tourist gear. A tacky t-shirt from a Meadowlands mall, khaki pants, a black bum bag packed with items, and a red visor from the same mall as his shirt.

"Come on, come on. No Zoogle street maps? They have the whole city in there! What's an Eyetooth? Ugh this thing..." The ram kvetched, poking at his phone with the soft pads under his hooves. His coverage was spotty the more he got near the tall buildings and he had to find clear sky for more of his bars to come back.

He looked as out of place and square as he really was, practically doing the dance of the out-of-area dork. He held his phone up, dropped it down, turned it around while his trotters clattered along the cracked sidewalk. He was probably far away from the card house he was looking for, probably too late for the buffet. He was sure he had heard a buffet being offered. They had buffets in Sahara Square. Expensive one. Happyton was cheaper but he had to get there.

He had to survive to get there, he had at the back of his mind. It might have been in a commercial, but it was still Happytown. He knew what that meant. All his neighbors had warned him not to go. Even if the commercials said to go, it was madness. They had predators there. They had immigrants there. It was dark and dirty and scary. He had said he was cool enough to make it. He was strong, better than all his bleating neighbors. He could make it. He was a big mammal, brave.

All alone, wandering through the middle of the place, casting his horizontal pupils around. Why did Zuber not bother dropping him right at the place? Stupid goat, dropping him off at the entrance to the place and leaving him with a GPS that did him no good. The maps were probably accurate but he had no way to get good route information. He'd leave a terrible review as soon as he got out of there.

If he got out of there.

While waving his phone around he found a break in the buildings, an alley that gave him more bars and got his GPS working properly. The little shaft of bright sky allowed the illumination of what was usually a dark alley. Grim, ugly, dirty. Some idiots had talked about how great the whole experience of Happytown was. Fly-filled, stinking garbage and a dumpster was hardly great tourist visuals.

One other visual that interrupted things was a woman. Some kind of cat with tufted ears, dressed in badly damaged cheap clothes. She looked like a working lady or a stripper. He was entirely unfamiliar with that kind of thing. He only saw them walking out of those sleazy clubs. He had signed the petition against them but they never seemed to close. They would, he was sure.

He wanted to pass by and not do anything. But he was a natural busybody. He looked down with his best judgmental stare. "Hey! Tourists are here now! You can't just sleep out on the street! You must have a place. Go there!" he gingerly reached out to nudge her with his trotter.

The cinnamon bobcat sagged, eyes wide and staring, pupils huge, her mouth open and tongue out. A needle was jabbed into her arm, while her fist was clutched tightly, having strained at the end of her life.

The ram, out of his element and beyond his capability, let out a huge, sustained, piercing shriek that rang out through the streets and off of the buildings pressing in around him.

The shrieking of actual police sirens replaced the shrieking of the out-of-place tourist. The screaming had brought one of the rare beat cops, which had then brought a more proper police response. The coroner, squad cars, and the dedicated liaison, Officer Louis Wulfberg.

"Great... a tourist saw _this_ spoor," he said, rubbing his forehead. "Bad enough Happytown gets this kinda thing. Now it's scaring off those Meadowlands wimps. At least it's nice and easy to call."

"You should know better than to say that," Sherlock said. He and Hermione were suddenly there, with the white stoat looking on the woman with horror, pity, and recognition. "You know what comes of that..."

"Not every crime is a conspiracy," Louis snapped, sucking in a breath and slowly releasing it, eyes closed and ears slightly back. "Sometimes crimes happen without being part of your caseload. Most of the time. Including here. Especially here. Happytown has crime, and you know it."

"Non... non.. not this, not this time," Hermione said, softly but with a clear passion in her tone. "I know her, I know this queen. I spoke to her, I had a... tete-a-tete with her. She told me things, things of a suspicious nature. There was a mystery, there were things she was not saying about a man, a dangerous man. I... I cannot prove or provide anything but... she was alive, she was reluctant but she and the ones of the street, they related to me strange secrets they only just knew..."

Louis huffed, but looked down on the dead bobcat with a softer expression. "That's not very specific. This is an overdose as far as we know. That's all it is. Why would she be killed and how would that tie into these other murders? Was she a witness or a participant?"

"I only know they were afraid," Hermione whispered. She couldn't look away. The thought came back to her again, more haunting than before. One bad influence, a missed chance at being Sherlock's understudy, a mistake in budgeting and it could have been her, slain to keep a secret. "There was a male who did not buy their affections. He took it, as some sort of right. Someone in a limo. They do not have managers nor pimps. But they are afraid of M. Limo."

"You know this is something different. Look at her face. Look at her clothes," Sherlock said, pulling out his glass and focusing on the areas he mentioned. "Bites on the clothes, clothes that look like they were completely ravaged. Blunt, flat. Herbivorous. You have seen herbivore teeth, I am sure."

"Dad's teeth always looked so different from mine. Nancy had mom's teeth and dad's horns..." Louis mumbled, leaning down more to look at the clothes and the other marks. "I don't need a glass. Rough tears, swelling on the face and body, a little blood on the lips. This still could be just a rough customer. Bad night, gets sad, goes for some artificial happiness."

"Un moment, C. Wulfberg..." Hermione said, popping an earbud in and messing with her second-paw recorder. "Oui... oui, listen to this..."

" _But, that's for regular folks. Charlie was more about giving bucks for food or cigs, and Red used a little for... medicinal purposes. But Charlie jus-"_

Louis nodded his head slowly. "You're saying she wasn't a complete niphead? Just because this girl told you so?"

"They had no reason to lie to me. And I know what these kind look like. They fail at selling themselves," Hermione asserted. "Too many twitches, cannot control their claws, scratching, losing fur from grooming too much. Not all who know abuse, abuse; we must see things here we cannot ignore."

"I don't know if you're making my life a living Desolation or getting me the big pension and gold buttons," Louis said with a puff of breath and another look down at the cinnamon bobcat. "I want to say this isn't your case and I can. I'll tell you if it is but there's no connection I can actually sell to Bogo. Even if this... Limo guy rules the ladies of the night..."

"And gangs," Hermione quickly added.

"No... you can't be serious," Louis said with a pained expression.

Hermione listened to her recorder again and played it again. " _He never says how, no one really knows anything, but keeping him happy makes cops and problems go away. You ask the vicemongers and some of the dumber gangsters, they don't know how they do what they do. Ask the wrong dealer and you might end up on the wrong end of some claws. Not all the dealers work inside Happytown, for Happytown. They all pay something to someone. Mr. Limo picks up everything. We don't have pimps, but we have... requirements. He picks up a lady, and they go... somewhere. Nobody has ever seen. It's all blindfolds and Fifty Grades of Prey, for real._ " She motioned to the bobcat. "C'est elle. She knew much. Too much?"

"Hearsay," Louis said, more quickly than he intended. "I'm sorry but it is. Even with the words of the victim there's the possibility that it's all coincidence. And the Mayor will gladly raise high squeaking over this, accusing the whole department of tinfoil hat insanity."

"The thread is present, but tenuous, fine as spider silk with not the same strength," Sherlock noted with a shake of his shaggy head.

"You love your poetic spoor," Louis grumbled, shaking his head slowly. "Sorry. This is stressful. I wasn't anything special. Dad was a construction worker, mom's still a socialite, but she's got a face like me. We're all just nobodies. Why me?"

"Why am I here? I should have been in the monastery, I could be an enlightened lama like Master Bajja. Forces far beyond us move us. We control the tiny sphere of our own lives but in the darkness beyond our little island of light, those live," Sherlock said, standing and replacing his glass. "We control those things within our reach and never forget that. But remember as well, you will be singled out, for reasons unfathomable to you. For no reason at all. You were chosen. Now control what you may."

Louis sighed, looking down at Red. "One connection. One simple connection between this queen and your cases, you're in on this. But you need that first. I need to get under the mayor. Chief Bogo and Commissioner Oliphant can't protect me or keep this running forever, the big shield is going to crack eventually."

"We will do our part, all we can, C. Wulfberg. This was always too much," Hermione said, continuing to look down on Red. "She was not pure, but she was innocent. Workers for a man performing some act of vice were not worthy of death. And Charlie... he was pure. M. Gyag, we must find something. Viens, vite!"

"Mlle. LaBelle..." Sherlock slowly shook his head. "We have other jobs, jobs which pay us and have strong evidence. Those must get attention. The bucks across out palms are the sealing of a promise made to someone. It is a duty we undertake on our honor."

"Monsieur..." Hermione huffed out the word, looking up at Sherlock with a hard stare. "Monsieur... they... deserve..."

"They do," Sherlock said, firmly. "I have said you are my student; my understudy, by your words. I gave you wings, as my venerable master did for me. Surely he thought me too untrained, but he held some assurance that I would land from my stumbling fight. You investigated on your own, found something interesting. We may be under that onus, but only one need follow. Find what you can, connect these threads. Give me something, anything. Fly, and bring word back."

Hermione nodded sharply, instantly rushing off, clicking away on her high heels. Louis shook his head as she made her way off. "She's best off if this is nothing but a wild sturgeon hunt. If there's nothing to find she'll run around soothing her righteous indignation, get tired and come back."

"Infantilizing my student... is it cynicism or malice from you?" Sherlock asked.

"Spare me," Louis huffed. "She's morally indignant, not thinking right. This isn't how criminal investigation goes. She only thinks she has facts."

"I only thought I had facts," Sherlock casually said.

"You did have facts. We know it. Now," Louis said, heavily emphasizing the last word. "That's when you act."

"So then... you cannot know she will find nothing. Should she, we will act. And only then," Sherlock asserted with a sharp nod of his head.

o o o

Hermione had no clue where to find clues. Yet she had, in the back of her mind, an inkling. The same place, visited twice, could bring forth new information if things changed. Things changed. Had they been any other workers she would have presumed no one would be there after the death of one of their own. But they lived in a grim and practical world, no matter what happened, no matter the climate, their health or who died to the street, they had to work. Work with all their might, or starve and suffer.

They were all arrayed out again in the lowering light of evening. Minus Red. They were subdued, distant, performing poses and doing their usual routine actions without thought. They were all empty-eyed robots, contemplating things deeply as they normally never did. They knew death. But it was a new kind of death that faced them, that they had to consider. They considered it and it consumed them.

The coyote with the clove cigarette hanging from her lips had taken the position Red had held, an unspoken, de facto leader. Her blank eyes grazed across Hermione, executing a slow blink, the glowing tip of her cigarette going brighter as she pulled in a drag and let it puff out of her nose to cloud her face. "It was him," Clover said with another breath of smoke. "He came to take his cut, his fillet of sole. He took what we somehow owe him. He was supposed to give her back. He was supposed to give her back..." Her sharp teeth sheared through her cigarette, the little nub of cloves and paper falling to the sidewalk, cinders sparking. " _ **He was supposed to give her back**_ **!** "

"And he did," Hermione said, evenly. There were no set rules for rage. She could only do what felt right. She approached with a mild, upright stance, hands behind her back, ears high, meeting the anger and pain with confidence. Steely assurance. "Battered, beaten, ravaged by un fauve, un sauvage. Then... she was removed, and made to look like she destroyed herself. But we both know this was not the case, oui?"

"Red stood front and center for a reason," Clover asserted. "She was locked into the place, she chewed the cat grass, but she wasn't stupid. Even if Mr. Limo took her away and did his worst she'd just have a story to tell. Maybe he knew that. Maybe he didn't want even the smallest thing getting out."

"Not a sou... why, why was she a threat? She would say nothing," Hermione mused, tapping her cheek.

Clover had been extracting another cig from when she came across a little rectangle of cardboard, the shock making her gasp and drop the little cylinder of paper. "Th-the card!"

"Card?" Hermione asked, turning to regard the coyote.

Clover fumbled in her small bag again and pulled out Sherlock's card, which Hermione had given out the other day. "Here, this. Red didn't really carry a bag, she didn't have much to carry around. She always just shoved her money and stuff into her clothes. I saw her stuff it in there... and then..."

"It came out... doubtless she never noticed as she was..." Hermione winced, trembling at the thought of what had happened to the bobcat given the marks left on her body. "And they... they thought that she had loose lips because of that card."

"They didn't know her... they didn't care she was a mammal..." Clover spat on the ground as she pulled out a cig and lit it with slightly trembling fingers. "She would have kept her mouth shut. You remember the spoor she gave you just for asking questions she didn't even think would get real answers. I'll bet she saw something, she wouldn't just lie there like a frozen fishstick. That blindfold musta come off."

Hermione thought about all the things Sherlock had shown in his glass. The swelling from punches, thinner marks from something like a whip, teeth marks from the broad teeth of a prey creature, pulled clumps of fur. "It did. I saw her body. She did not stay still. She did not stay blindfolded. Elle a vu. I cannot say what, but there was something. Quelque chose... a bedroom, a face, some kind of clothing that she could tell about later. They know of Sherlock now, and now we are in danger. But that is our matter. All of you... will you..?"

"We'll survive," Clover said with a puff of smoke. "We always come through all this spoor. Maybe minus one or two. But you can't kill off the oldest profession. We'll be fine. We'll still be here. We'll always be here so long as it's a job we can do to keep hunger off and a roof over our heads." With a last puff of smoke the coyote turned away to go back to her spot.

"Bon chance, princesse de la rue... you are better than most everyone here. You see so far..." Hermione sighed and clicked her way off. She would find no other information there. They were all too stunned and no one would know anything anyhow. They had given up the precious few bits of information they had, and her hunger for more had cost someone their life.

There was nowhere else to go. She had learned something new, as she had hoped. But it was far from useful. She knew they knew. The monster, the savage, this Mr. Limo that had hurt an innocent. He knew them, and would put a target on their backs... on their foreheads, he was so bold.

No one would help her. The ladies gave her what they could; their lives were precarious, they understood that. They were afraid yet completely practical. There was no greater threat than merely living, but Red had thought she could protect her petites colombes. She had. With her own flesh she had taken them away from danger, putting anger and fear onto her and onto Sherlock.

Hermione slumped slightly, into a more conventional weasel posture, especially in Happytown. Stoat that she was, she was another class of stretched-out mammal. She hunched, her hands reflexively rubbed each other, pressed up by her chest. She couldn't maintain her haughty pride.

Haughty? In the back of her mind she really considered her attitude. Though she was sure she was another wretch in Happytown she was defiant. Even if she never broke out of the place, never went anywhere beyond the border, she thought she was better than the place. She wanted to be better than the place, to prove that it could not get her, could not break her. It would not break her... she thought.

The cases they had worked were deep looks into mammalian depravity. But it was so normal. Those that have little stealing from those tho have less, mutual beatings, assaults of a terrible nature. It was disgusting, it was upsetting, but it was inside. Everyone knew what everyone thought, what everything meant. They all understood. It was crimes of single layers, crimes with comprehensible scope. Inside.

She never had to think outside the border.

He came from out there. M. Limo came from the puffed-up, pompous place past the unspoken barrier. No one understood out there, unless they had escaped. Nicholas. Duke. So few others. The ones with them had been informed. Perhaps they knew, not understood but they knew, could claim more ability to comprehend, if loosely. M. Limo didn't understand, but he did not need to. He only needed to take, to know there were mammals there that could be basely used. Resource units. Things, to be exploited.

That's all any of them were to mammals outside. To many mammals on the outside. Certainly, not all. Frightening monsters to scare their children. Gangsters to frighten up more money for pet causes and police. Poor little broken-winged colombes to weep their crocodile tears over...

Hermione sighed. She was just as bad. Though their power and pride made them worth mistrust she was no different form them, an ugly mirror of their hate for insiders. When Gazelle wept her tears over their plight she did not act in ignorance. She echoed the pain of her own husband, and his friends, those who left. Those who evaded the come-ons of the stripe-bedecked posers, stalking and stinking up their street corners like popcorn.

Her mind became too divided as she thought. Her precious mind, her little gray cells, were powerful. Too powerful. Sherlock warned her often that thinking deep and long was like striking out in the snow. Light flurries did little but the full fury of a storm blinded any hope of far-seeing. She had heard from an otter once that it was the same in the sea. Clear and crystalline in the shallows but murky and all-consuming the deeper the water became.

Her thoughts had always been necessarily shallow. This invasion, this intrusion of outside mammals, like an infection. Though they thought of Happytown as diseased, she knew they were a hardy survivor, yet a delicately balanced ecosystem. It needed help to shed the vestigial garbage, not someone coming in siphoning off healthy parts.

It was something wholly new. She was not used to such and it would drive her mad if she persisted. She needed facts, needed a trail to follow. She had had trails, at the start. All made of blood and burned bodies, her neighbors sacrificed to the evil force outside that used M. Limo as a catspaw to rake in money and flesh. Surely he was not the peak of the mount. Too flashy in the execution of horrid things. He might be suave and classy in more prominent and public life, but would hide all things when it came to his activities.

Her wandering thinking had taken her all around the heart of Happytown, not leaving her lost, per se, but leaving her outside of her usual haunts. She was away from the ladies of the night, but in territory that was not her own. She could care for herself, Sherlock and her own inclinations had trained her in the ways of protection. But she would have greatly preferred to avoid using such. Better security than practice.

"Merde..." She softly said, clicking along the street on her high heels, her second-paw tiramisu dress swaying wildly in time with her rapid motions, her pace naturally settled into the one she had while following Sherlock. She had come back to her erect pride, upper body slightly twisting in time with her steps, her clutch pulled tight against her body.

Her body had no intent, her motions had no desires besides merely traveling. But hungry eyes read intent where none existed. Predatory gazes always misinterpreted innocent acts, gluttony coloring the world into the sickly shade of their own selfish desire. It saw nothing and turned it into something. Turned the clip of her high heels and the sashay of that long body under the second-paw dress into something suggestive, overt, seducing. Her indifferent natural motion was an active call for attention.

Carnal hunger in the mysterious figure mixed with a somehow deeper gluttony, a hunger not to spend the cash on hand but to earn more. The two fought, tore at each other, ravaged each other. The skulking shadow oozed its way across the street, an oily stain against the spotty lights of the neglected segment of the city. The voice from out of the inky blackness bundled up against any trace of the light. "Hey there... brand new. Not welcome over with the other pieces of meat? Out for a late night date? Need better corners for that, better real estate. Not thinking too good tonight, weasel snack?"

"Hermine," Hermione quickly snapped, almost reflexively, ignoring the implications. She clicked on, trying to decide if she should be personally offended or offended for the kind women trying to eke out their daily bred from greasy scum like the creature sliming his way along by her. She could practically smell his waxy oils and the fruity spray he used to keep himself from stinking like someone who went too long without a good scrub.

"Whatever exotic scat you call yourself, just an extra tin in your hand. Albino weasel is just one more opah steak on the shelf. But, you're on your own. Enterprising. Maybe you wanna party. I got what you need. What all you street-skittering skirts need. Maybe you need to take the edge off. You look mad. That'll give you wrinkles. Can't sell a face or anything else that looks like a prune. You must be sour enough to have wrinkled up the money-maker. Some good green should relax you up. A taste for a taste. We can trade."

The voice undulated like a wave of bile, slithering across her ears, making her feel unclean just from the sound of it. It was disgusting. But worse, it was blatant. He had no airs of illusions. He was another vicemonger, but not a wholesome survivor like the women. He was a leech and proud of it. A purveyor of poison that relished his stock of ill-will. He used his spoor as currency to buy favor, it seemed. Depressingly, that meant it had worked sometime.

Hermione seethed, but did not know enough to risk taking him on. Yelling at him, releasing her rage, would not help if she miscalculated a species imbalance. She needed calm, as Sherlock tried so diligently to teach her. When he wasn't there with his incense pipe, droning for long moments of idleness to his throat-singing music and his humming bowl he was with her, cross-legged, eyes closed. Chanting soft words in that mysterious language of his, in her mother tongue, or in silence, contemplating the empty blackness behind her eyelids.

She breathed in slowly, and released it as a long, even breath. Her little gray cells started to work again, freed from the shackles of anger and hurt. She truly contemplated the mysterious figure. Offering her drugs. Knowing the women of the night. He was watching for them, watching to feed needs he was sure they had. Vices he could profit from. Or that he could use against them. She was sure Red had been a victim. Someone had wanted it to look like the consequence of an immoral life. Another self-destruction. A 'suicide.' An 'accident' in dark buildings with precarious environments and shoddy wiring or flammable garbage. Neatly packaged, neatly sold, artificial to the core. A story they wanted spread, a story that the outside mammals would lap up, savoring the mendacity that fed their prejudices and smug sense of moral superiority. It was easy to lie about folk they hated.

Link upon link connected across Hermione's brain, in a manner not unlike Sherlock's mysterious mental powers, with perhaps less polish. She was only an understudy, after all. Mysterious forces did not act for nothing. There was no room in the ecosystem for too many cleaners. Carrion-eaters could only exist side-by-side if there was enough flesh and if there were no pressures stopping them. In blind nature it was possible for scavengers to be varied. Under the watchful eye of the monster ruling these events his agents would act with impunity, them and only them.

"Oui, monsieur... un fête..." she said slowly, her pace steady but her eyes casting to the side. "We will have the... good times? Comme le laveur dit, laissez-les bon temps rouler..."

"Quit spittin' that mush-mouth frog-fried spoor, just tell me if you wanna party! You new meat is always so tender before you dry out and turn into drapes. What do you need? Not sure what you weasels need. Little ladies don't last very long. Someone'll pipe through you and toss you in a dumpster," the figure said with a hideous mirth, letting out a callous laugh.

There was a moment of consideration, her natural inclination to a dour disposition fighting with her sensible consideration. She had need of something from him, but not the bulge in his shadowy nethers or the swells of packed poison arrayed around his lumpen body. "Oui, c'est amusant..." She was not going to put her fist through his teeth. She needed to extract something from this creature. "So you... you always know what, ah... we need? When we click along the streets we are like music to you, calling out. Every step the song of la sirene?"

"I told you to knock off that français scat!" The smooth, callous character turned even more coarse. He had lost his polluted unctuousness, that street-level suavity giving way to split seams on his disguise, a crack in the mask over his real malevolence. No admixture of slime and cocksure boldness. Only the rage within, the hate and petulance boiling beneath the surface. "Just tell me you wanna party with what I got for you! What kinda junk do weasels need to party?"

"We... have many needs," Hermione said slowly, thinking about what kind of common drugs those like her kind used. "We... we are like cats. Cat grass... oui! Cat grass. For the ladies like me. Those who walk the streets..."

Wheels clicked in two heads. The gears were grinding in two skulls, both sides acting against each other, with both knowing they were in a war without it being a mutual battle. She acted against him, but presumed he did not know she was moving to corner him. He knew.

"Cat grass... yeah, makes sense. You've got them needle teeth. I've got plenty of that," he said, digging into his coat and pulling out a little self-contained hypo, looking a bit like an epipen. "Always got party packs ready to go. Lemmee have an arm, weasel."

That was the clue, too late for her to do much. She could have pretended to inject herself. But he wanted to make sure she was drugged. "So quick..." Hermione reached for her clutch, trying to surreptitiously reach for her phone. To call whom, she had no idea. Sherlock. Officer Wulfberg. Just the police. In Happytown? Madness.

"Hey! Come on! Let's have some fun!" He stabbed at her arm, overcorrecting but still managing to arrest any motion away from him. She staggered on her heels, the first time in her life she had ever stumbled so terribly. She was tottering on her heels, dodging the stabs of the object, seeking a way to escape from him and avoid being pushed to the wall on either side of the street.

"Non! Arrêt! M'aide!" Hermione shouted, putting all her musteline skills into the task of desperately dodging and dashing in different directions, always into the bulky body of the less mobile but more massive body of the dealer.

"Who's paying you? They wasted their money! You're not moving in on this job, you're not skilled enough. There's only one master of this places and it's not whoever thought you'd get in," the figure cried, finally scoring a lucky hit, the needle sinking deep into Hermione's arm, a quick push forcing lukewarm liquid of an unknown composition.

Hermione shrieked in shock and fear, yanking her arm away and knocking the object away from her arm, too late. Her mind immediately felt odd. Shrouded with thick layers of mental cloth, while her heart raced and muscles twitched. "M-m'aide..!" She tried to cry, the sound muffled and echoing in her ears. She had a vague impression that the figure was out to give her another dose of something. Noises crashed in, shouts, words, empty words. Her eyes saw shadows. The stranger figure running off, while a different silhouette closed in toward her. Such familiar horns, such a familiar shape. Familiar.

She slipped into the darkness feeling less afraid.


End file.
